


By His Side

by GilShalos1



Series: Sidelong Glances [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Addiction, Angst, Angst and Humor, Complete, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Friendship/Love, Hurt/Comfort, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-18
Updated: 2015-01-31
Packaged: 2018-03-08 01:37:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 38
Words: 35,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3190928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GilShalos1/pseuds/GilShalos1
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The story of "Side By Side" from Cullen's POV. Warning: contains major, major spoilers for "Side By Side", which relies entirely on its ambiguity for enjoyment! Ratings and warnings definitely meant, especially in the early chapters. For my previous readers, starts in a far darker place than "Side By Side." </p><p>Now with art!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Worst Idea Ever

She bitches about the cold.

 

In Kirkwall, she bitched about the heat. On the ship, she bitched, between bouts of vomiting, about the waves.

 

Sometimes, he thinks the only reason he asked her to come with him was to find out what else in the wide world Killeen Hanmount could find to complain about, and to hear the inventive ways in which she does. The fact that she’s an utterly reliable sword and shield to his left in any fight, has proven herself to have the cool presence of mind to gut an abomination in the second’s opening given by the blow that laid open her face to the bone, begins to feel like an added bonus rather than his original motivation.

 

Then another bad night takes him unawares, one of the very worst ones, featuring the Hero of Ferelden, or what looks like the Hero of Ferelden but very much isn’t. Because it’s a dream he knows what’s going to happen, all of it, every shameful arousing second of it, and so he is beyond surprised when the Hero takes him by the shoulder and says _Cullen, wake up!_

 

He opens his eyes to his tent. Killeen’s hand is on his shoulder, her calm face tactfully averted. He can’t tell if she doesn’t know that the memory of the demon has him achingly, disgustingly, hard or if she’s giving him the chance to pretend she doesn’t.

 

 _Take a woman_ , one of his seniors had advised him, _even if it's a whore,_ but he’s never been able to bring himself to take the memory of those days in the Circle Tower to another woman’s bed, even one paid to deal with men’s darkest fantasies.

 

Killeen stands up without looking at him, asks if he wants some wine.

 

Cullen says yes, turns to his side to conceal his erection.

 

Knows that he didn’t ask her to come to Haven as a soldier or a jester.

 

_As a friend._

 


	2. Shoulder to Shoulder

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Herald saves the day

It’s been uncountable hours of nightmares, demons everywhere, the smell of them, the _taste_ they leave in the air.

 

Another rift opens almost on top of them and Kill says hopefully _Kittens_! He thanks the Maker for a woman who can crack wise in the face of utter disaster, knows that without her constant, low-level bitching about _never fucking **kittens** falling from the sky, oh no, has to be fucking demons, doesn’t it_ he would have long since lost the ability to remember that this is Haven, not the Circle Tower.

 

A woman steps out of the Fade and collapses at his feet.

 

The company almost turns into a mob when he won’t kill the survivor out of hand despite the mark on her hand. Killeen’s shoulder solid beside his, swordpoint unwavering — he thanks the Maker he doesn’t have to face them down alone.

 

Gathers the survivor in his arms and almost loses his breath at how much she looks like the Hero of Ferelden, looks again and sees it’s only the superficial resemblance of build and colouring.

 

He carries her down to Haven because he can’t be sure any of their troops won’t weaken to the temptation to kill the prisoner out of hand and returns to the nightmare. When someone mentions _days_ he’s surprised: it doesn’t seem long enough for something that’s held him in his grip for most of his adult life.

 

Cassandra brings the prisoner back, brings them _hope_ , at the very moment when Kill falters and falls and he thinks _this is it, this is the end of it_ , brings the possibility of one day, one day more.

 

He helps Kill down the mountain, teases her for her clumsiness although he's never felt less light-hearted, because her face is white and set with pain and the last thing she needs is to worry about him. She jokes back. Later, he can't recall a word of it, only that he'd told her _I'm still here_ , that she'd replied _so am I._  

 

The messengers crowd around him when they reach Haven. Kill pulls away from him, flaps her hands. _Go_ , her expression says.

 

He goes. 


	3. On One Foot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Cullen dreams.

The Herald seems to stop by the soldier’s camp to talk to him more than Inquisition business strictly requires. Cullen’s heart beats faster at the sight of her, slight and fair and crackling with magic. His palms sweat, his stomach ties itself in knots, and he finds it hard to breathe. From what little he’s read of poetry, these are all symptoms of love.

 

Kill’s right, he’s in love with the Herald. He finds himself listening for her footsteps, her voice, trying to think of what he’ll say in response to her inevitable, unstoppable questions. Despite all his efforts at preparation he’s taken by surprise when she asks about the Blight, about the Circle Tower, memory seizing him by the throat, and that night he stays at his desk dealing with paperwork until there’s not a single requisition left, until his eyes are closing of their own accord and —

 

_Do you like this? How about this?_

 

_He says no, he always says no, says stop, but he can’t keep his body from saying yes and she laughs. The feel of it, of her laughing at him with her lips around him, is utterly humiliating, is indescribably exciting, and as the hot tears of shame leak from his eyes he knows that, as always, in another moment he won’t be able to keep himself from thrusting into her mouth, won’t be able to choke back the animal noises of his contemptible lust, won’t be able to stop the heat and the need and —_

 

_Until she pulls away and laughs again, leaving him on the brink of release, leaving him hating and wanting and loathing and needing her touch. Not until you beg me, she says. Tell me that you like it. Tell me that you want it._

  
_It was the line the demon had never been able to make him cross, although he knows that had it taken longer for the Hero to find him he would have, eventually._

 

_But he didn't, and never has in nightmares since. He doesn’t now._

  
As he wakes aching and gasping with arousal he almost wishes that he had, that there was some release, however foul, for the tension that tightens his balls and has his cock straining against his breeches. His own hand could provide that relief, but that too is a line he's never allowed himself to cross. If there is any possibility he'll ever be free of the demon's hold on him, then yielding to that temptation would kill it forever, just as surely as yielding to the demon would have. 

 

 _There was no word for heaven or for earth, for sea or sky,_ he whispers, head bowed. _All that existed was silence.Then the Voice of the Maker rang out …_

 

Eventually his erection subsides.

 

When the pressures on Haven’s accommodation have the soldiers doubling up in tents, it’s Killeen who moves into his and Cullen finds he’s glad of it and not just because it keeps his shameful secret. Kill’s an easy, comfortable presence, always ready with an anecdote about her days in the Kirkwall Guard, a pithy comment on their allies, a joke so dirty he can’t help but laugh even as he protests.

 

Without lyrium, more and more of his nights are bad ones, are the Hero of Ferelden teasing and taunting him, _do you like this? How about this?_

 

_He says no, he always says no, says stop —_

 

_Cullen, you’re dreaming, Killeen’s voice says from somewhere behind him._

 

_He turns to look at her, but she’s nowhere in sight, turns back and realises he’s alone._

 

_He’s still hard, teased to the edge of orgasm by the demon’s unwanted attentions, but there’s a place he knows, and in the way of dreams he’s there as soon as thinking of it, the small gardener’s shed at the Tower, one of the few places a Templar-in-training could find some privacy. The demon isn’t here, has never been here, wasn’t interested in the memories of the hurried self-stimulation of teenage boys. He is alone, absolutely alone, safely alone._

 

_He moves the familiar crate against the familiar door, and takes hold of his throbbing cock, mind blessedly, blissfully empty of anything but heat and friction and yes, now, yes —_

 

 _Release surging through him like a mill-race, leaving him sobbing with relief until_ he wakes with his seed cooling on his stomach and tears on his cheeks.

 

Kill’s voice soft in the dark. He can’t trust his voice to answer, concentrates on steadying his breathing —

 

Doesn’t even notice when he slips into a dreamless sleep. 


	4. Arm In Arm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Herald is away

If the Herald of Andraste, their only hope of closing the Breach, absolutely has to be wandering around the Hinterlands — and she does, he understands the logic of building influence, garnering goodwill — then Cullen would much rather Andraste had given the Mark to someone he could be confident wouldn’t die uselessly to some rookie mistake in a scrap against bandits or apostate mages. Someone like Kill, with instincts so honed that even in the safety of Haven she won’t stay silhouetted in a doorway, or walk with a wall on her right.

 

Not someone like Lady Trevelyan, who is exactly like the mages he joined the Templars to protect — Circle-sheltered, unworldly, helpless in the face of danger.

 

Except no mage is _helpless_ , as he’d been taught in his training and later learned from experience, and it was after all a slender mage-girl who prevailed against the Circle Tower’s abominations when he and his fellow Templars could not.

 

Still, he’s uneasy when the Herald is away from Haven, relieved every time she returns unharmed. It makes him short-tempered, even with Killeen, when she’s the one with the right to snap at _him_ : the paperwork of the Inquisition’s military would drown him without her good sense and grasp of priorities to lean on.

 

She teases him about his cloak, but he knows what she means is _You’re forgiven_.

 


	5. Step By Step

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which certain things are shared.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you've all seen, I've made rewrite based on some insightful comments by readers - so do feel free to go on making them! Writing this has been a different experience without a narrative to drive it (at least, not an internal narrative) so feedbacky goodness is good.

It’s been years since he was in any sense a sound sleeper and the sound wakes him instantly, hand reaching automatically for his sword-hilt before his mind registers what it is that he hears. A choked half-sob, from the cot across from his.

 

He says her name softly, waits for her to mutter _I’m all right_ , but she doesn’t and he rises, kicks the brazier to stir the coals.

 

Kill’s rigid in her bed, face glistening with sweat, breath whining in her throat. His heart pounds as if whatever torments her in her sleep is a real, immediate danger that threatens them both, but he’s well-practised in staying calm whatever the circumstances and his voice is steady as he tells her to _come back, now, wake up_.

 

Her eyes don’t open until he shakes her and then her face takes on the unmistakable pallor of acute nausea. He grabs the nearest container and braces her as she retches and retches, as if the dream has lodged somewhere deep inside her and her body is trying urgently to expel it. It’s painful to see, more painful to watch the tears that follow, but all he can offer is the poor comfort of _it’ s over, it’s past, you’re all right_ , knowing just how little use it is.

 

When he asks _what was it_ , she refuses to tell him, turns the question back against him with a speed that takes him unprepared, takes him for an instant to _do you like this? How about this?_ Kill’s voice brings him back again, a blurted apology when _she’s_ not the one with anything to be sorry for.

 

He’s told the story once, choking out every last detail of his abasement for the report, and once only. There’s no way he can tell it again, not to anyone but perhaps least of all to Killeen. The thought of her shrinking from him in justified disgust …

 

 _Or worse._ Perhaps his report had been kept less confidential than he’d been promised or perhaps he’d said enough in his sleep for his roommate to drawn the right conclusions. One of the Templars at Kirkwall had made a joke about _being lucky enough to get sucked off by the Hero of Ferelden._ Cullen had beaten him bloody.

 

He has enough hard-won self-control these days to know he won’t strike her but knows, too, their friendship will be over in that second if she mistakes shame for guilt or torture for pleasure.

 

But he can’t let her nightmares fester inside her the way his own have, either, can’t stand the thought of her twisting inside the way he has, of her driven night after night through whatever had torn that choked sob from her — tells her, as much as he can force past his lips, enough for her to guess the rest.

 

 _Unbearable_ , she says, as if she hears everything he hasn’t said, and then gives him the ugly truth about her own dream like a gift held out to him in her two cupped hands. 


	6. Blow By Blow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Killeen makes a joke

And then she makes a joke of it, not just to him but to the whole Company, something about the Hero and _getting his ashes hauled_ and the betrayal is so utterly unexpected it takes his breath away as thoroughly as a hard hook to the diaphragm.

 

And since she has a sword and shield in her hands and so does he, he can give in to the urge to lash out, to hurt her as she has just hurt him. But this is _Kill_ , and she gives as good as she gets, and he finds himself sword-to-sword with her, his right arm numb, his nose possibly broken.

 

 _Any idea on how we get out of this?_ she asks, and this is _Kill_ , and he’s not entirely sure just _what_ the joke she made was but he’s suddenly, utterly certain he must have misunderstood her meaning. Kill would never be, is constitutionally incapable of being, so careless with something that matters.

 

Is more than capable of finding a way to turn the whole ugly situation into a morale-boosting joke.

 

Cullen walks away to find some snow for his possibly broken nose, and finds himself suddenly thinking about her last wisecrack, about the implication that women, too, feel the kind of physical need that finds relief in self-stimulation. That she herself does. If it’s true, she must be very quiet about it — or else has found somewhere other than the tent they share. Has she lain silent in the dark beside him, feeling the growing heat and tension prompted by her own touch — or somewhere else, somewhere perhaps she can give voice to her pleasure?

 

He wonders if she lies on her back, her side, her belly, what her even voice would sound like lifted in the involuntary sounds of desire and release, how her face would look flushed and slack, limbs loose, what she imagines as her fingers rub and press …

 

Realises both that it is absolutely none of his business, and that he’s inappropriately hard.

 

He welcomes a conversation about the Herald, uncomfortable as Kill’s teasing is, as a distraction giving him a chance to get his errant cock under control.

 

Not until later, as he watches her stride away, does he realise it’s the first erection he’s had since he stopped taking lyrium which wasn’t prompted by the demons in his dreams.

 

For the first time, he allows himself to hope that his choice isn’t simply between lyrium and torment — that there might somewhere be an end to both.

 

And that he might one day reach it. 


	7. Hand in Hand

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Cullen talks to the Herald

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve changed the format here a bit - using direct speech since this chapter is so dialogue heavy - let me know if you find the change jarring, and I’ll go back to the other way.

He rehearses it all afternoon. _It occurs to me, Lady Trevelyan, that you must have been Harrowed only very recently before the Mage Rebellion broke out. Having served as a Templar, I know how difficult such experiences can be. If you ever feel the need to talk about it, I'm always available to you._

 

It comes out a little more rapidly than he’d hoped and he quite can’t manage to look at her as he says it, but at least the words are all there and in order.

 

The Herald thanks him prettily, gives a sidelong glance. “One might almost think you were looking for an excuse to seek my company, Commander.”

 

“Maker, no!”  he blurts, and then feels himself turn crimson as he tries to stammer some explanation for the insult. “Not my — that is, my Second, Kill — Killeen, that is Hanmount, Killeen Hanmount, she, uh, was the one. Who suggested you might — of course if you don't then naturally I —”

 

"Oh," she says. "So it's  _Killeen_ who thinks you need an excuse to seek my company. I don't think I know her, do I?"

 

Cullen seizes the change of subject like a drowning man seizes a rope."She's been on light duty. You'd remember, if you'd met her — she's very striking. Dark , tall — " He gestures with his hand to show she's nearly as tall as he is.   

 

"And quite the matchmaker, it seems."

 

"She, uh, has. A sense of humour."

 

"She'll have to be disappointed," the Herald says. "I'm sorry if I've given you the wrong impression, Cullen. I'm afraid you're not my type. If, as you say, she's dark, then _Killeen_ might be."

 

"Uh," Cullen says, wondering how he's been unclear. "Killeen's, um, a woman —" The Herald gives him a  _look_. "Oh.  _Oh_."

 

"Is that a problem?"   

 

He should be disappointed. He is, after all, in love with her.

 

All he feels is relief. "Not at all. Not in the slightest. I'm, ah. Delighted."

 

The Herald laughs. "Now I'm insulted."

 

“Maker.” Cullen rubs the back of his neck. "That ... didn't come out right."

 

"No," Lady Trevelyan agrees, but she's smiling. "But I do take your meaning. Tell me more about your Killeen and her determination to match you off."

 

So he does. It's somehow, suddenly, easier to talk to her, and he's amused, too, by the thought of telling Killeen that  _she_ might very well be the object of the Herald's affections — of getting a little of his own back.

 

He tells her of meeting Kill when a family with a mage-child barricaded themselves inside their house and threatened to fire it rather than hand him over to the Templars. A tragedy in any circumstances but, given the house was only doors from Kirkwall's biggest oil merchant, also an incipient disaster: Killeen, sweat crawling down her face, patiently negotiating through the keyhole for hours in the hot summer sun.

 

Tells her of things going bad and then worse in Kirkwall, abominations stalking the streets, finding himself cut off from his comrades and fighting for his life until Kill, off duty and out of uniform, charged in with a sword she'd taken from a dead man lying in the street. Told of seeing the abomination drop on her from the alley, claws raking her face, Killeen sliding in to the opening left by its blow to neatly spit it. Turning toward him, face a mask of blood, and saying conversationally  _Cullen, I think it took my eye_.

 

Tells her of the work Killeen’s been doing, her utter reliability when it comes to detail and her knack for seeing through the occasional ambit claims by merchants. Her ability to deal with people like Threnn when his own temper gets the best of him, to find the exact joke that will defuse a situation. He even tries to tell the Herald one of Kill’s favourites, realising half-way through that he’s ruined it by starting with the punchline, but the Herald laughs anyway. 

 

The watch bell goes and he realises with surprise they’ve been walking around the edge of the lake talking for hours.

 

 “I’ve taken enough of your time,” he says politely.

 

“I’ve enjoyed it,” Lady Trevelyan says as they turn back toward Haven. “We so rarely speak of anything but battle plans and strategic resources. It’s nice to — be people.” She takes his arm to cross a patch of ice. “I have to make sure everything is in order for the mages, when they arrive — but perhaps we can talk again, sometime.”

 

“I’d like that,” he says, and it’s true.

 

They reach the gates, and the Herald turns to go inside. Turns back with a grin. “Next time, I’ll tell you about _my_ sweetheart.”

 

“She’s not —” Cullen starts to explain, but Lady Trevelyan has already jogged up the steps. _Not my sweetheart_ , he finishes silently. In fact, there’s nothing sweet about Killeen. _Salty, sour, strong_ — he can think of a dozen other tastes that suit her better than sweet.

 

 _Salty_ , definitely, he decides, considering her language, and the sweat they all work up training, even in the cold. Kill never allows herself to take it easy, finishes each session with her hair clinging to her temples and droplets trailing down her neck to dampen her shirt collar or slide over her collarbone to slip beneath —

 

Hoofbeats on the road break into his thoughts.

 

The mages are here. 


	8. Neck And Neck

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Herald saves the day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> People have mentioned in comments specific things they’ve wondered about and would like to see included. Keep it up! I might not include all of them but I will try to touch on as many as I can.

Past the Herald’s shoulder Cullen sees Kill heading for the Chantry doors. She catches his eye, mimes  _trebuchet_.

 

And  _of course_  it’s Killeen who has, without needing an order, seen what needs to be done and put herself at the forefront of doing it. It’s why he asked her to come with him, after all, because he had a hunch that her constancy and calm in the face of pain and danger would translate well into the cool decisiveness needed in command, that she would become a Second he could rely on and never need to order or second-guess.

 

And yet the thought that comes into his head is  _No_.

 

He had not thought it when they were fighting, side-by-side for their lives; he had not thought it when the plan of burying Haven and them with it had been raised. But now there is an escape route; now they have a chance to live.  _He_ has a chance to live.

 

And he wants her with him, in whatever hope of safety there might be; or wants to be with her, in whatever depths of peril await.

 

Neither is possible. He cannot leave the Inquisition without its Commander. He cannot order Killeen to turn aside from a task she’s the one person most likely to successfully carry out. She wouldn’t obey such an order: she’d hate him for giving it.

 

He can’t even ask her to _be careful_ , to _come back_. He’d done so once, when bandits thought the pilgrims they’d escorted to Haven would be easy pickings. _Be careful_ , he’d wished her as she prepared to belly through the bushes to take them from the rear, and she’d whirled, angry as he’d ever seen her. _Don’t you do that, don’t you **dare** do that to me! You know that fighting scared will get you dead!_

 

Killeen turns and runs out the door and Cullen feels a tugging and an ache in his chest and then a sudden emptiness. He has the conviction that if he puts his hand to his breast he’ll feel no heartbeat, just a hollow rushing. It’s because, he realises, because his heart has left him, his heart is in the streets of Haven with a dark haired solider whose tongue can be cruelly sharp but whose eyes are always kind.

 

_So this is what love feels like_ , he thinks with wonder and with awe. The fondness he’d cherished toward the Hero, the urge he felt to protect and shelter the Herald — pale shadows beside this need to _hold_ and _share_ , beside the recognition that strikes him like a mage’s lightning bolt that the woman running into danger, running away from him, is as much a part of him as his own arms and legs, is as utterly necessary as air.

 

If she should not survive, his life will be over, no matter how long he lives.

 

_She must survive._ Surely the Maker would not have blessed him with this marvelous, miraculous knowledge, this echo of what He must have felt for Andraste, only to rob him of it immediately?

 

But he knows that the Maker has turned His face from His children, knows that to expect merciful intervention is foolish, is useless. Knows that Kill’s fate will be decided in a test where flesh and will contends with the hideously enhanced strength of the monsters in the Elder One’s army.

 

_She’s strong. And fast. And smart._

 

Cullen’s gut contracts with the knowledge it may likely not be enough.

 

Somehow, he gets everyone moving, through the tunnel, along the trail. Every now and then he pauses, fingers to his wrist: if his heart is with her, then as long as it beats, she is alive. It is nonsense, and he knows it, but again and again he brushes the pulse-point on his wrist, seeking reassurance.

 

 They reach the rendezvous point. He gives the order to send the arrow high.

 

The slide that follows buries Haven.

 

Cullen presses his fingers to his wrist again, staring to see through the blowing snow.

 

“She’s coming,” the strange pale boy says, _Cole_ , yielding Chancellor Roderick to a healer’s care – although from the state the man’s in, Cullen doubts it will do much good.

 

“The Herald?” Cullen asks.

 

And then stops hearing the answer because three, four, five figures are emerging from the curtain of snow — and one of them has his heart. 


	9. Knee Deep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which it snows

The Herald is half-dead when they find her, wounded and chilled, but she has enough strength to croak questions about Varric and Vivienne, the Iron Bull and the trebuchet team, as Cullen wraps her in his cloak and lifts her in his arms. Reassured that they’re all unharmed, she puts her head down on his shoulder and goes out like a pinched candle. Cullen cradles her to his chest, her light weight scarcely a burden even in the snow, and turns back the way they’ve come.

 

“She’s all right,” Cole tells him. The fey creature has some of the feel of a demon and Cullen wishes him _gone_ , wishes him _away_ , for an instant. Then he recalls that it is, after all, Cole who led them to the Herald, who is the only reason they were out looking for her to begin with, and he makes an effort to make his thoughts toward the creature more polite.

 

Efforts not aided when Cole says: “You don’t need to. I’m not like them but I understand why you’re frightened I might be. _Maker, no, stop_ and her hands –” He breaks off and shies away as Cullen’s thoughts turn from polite to explicitly, murderously violent.

 

“Never,” Cullen says between gritted teeth, “speak of that again.”

 

“But it hurts you. Shame and rage and fear tangled in wanting, needing – what kind of man must I be to have this feel so good?”

 

He can’t do what he wants to do, which is drop the Herald and choke the life out of Cole with his bare hands. All he can do is hope that the others are too far away to hear the conversation against the howling wind. _At least_ , he thinks, looking down at the small, still form in his arms, _at least the Herald has fainted._

 

_And Killeen isn’t here._

 

He tries again. “Please, Cole. Stop.”

 

“It’s what they do,” Cole said. “They’re very good at it. I’ve seen them, in the Fade. But you got away. Most don’t.”

 

“I was rescued,” Cullen says, trudging onward.

 

“No.” Cole shakes his head. “You said no.”

 

“For all the attention it paid,” Cullen says. _For all the attention my cock paid, for that matter._

 

“When someone cuts you, do you blame yourself for the pain?” Cole asks, sounding genuinely puzzled. “You said no. It couldn’t take you.”

 

There is light ahead, growing brighter: fires and torches, kindled against the killing cold. Cullen is glad to see it, but the idea of this creature following him around through the mass of refugees babbling his worst and shameful secrets almost makes him want to turn and walk back into the storm.

 

Mercifully, Cole falls silent, and then is gone, somewhere, as Cullen sees the dim shapes of posted guards patrolling their sectors, smells something savoury bubbling over a fire.

 

Which means Killeen is there, is all right, because only Kill could have produced a well-ordered, functional camp with food and shelter out of the chaos of the evacuation, as if pulling it from her breeches pocket, _Here’s an emergency I prepared for earlier_. Cullen feels a loosening in his chest at the sight, still searches the faces around the firelight until he sees hers.

 

Hollow eyed, tight with strain, but _there_.

 

Under the circumstances, that is enough.

 

Under the circumstances, that is the Golden City before the Taint, and all it once contained. 


	10. Hand To Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Before Mother Giselle sings.

The Herald delivered to the healers and a dozen incipient arguments calmed, Cullen finds Kill, at last. She is propped against a pile of supply sacks, some little distance from one of the fires. The girl she had carried through the storm is curled in her lap, sleeping in the shelter of her cloak, only a mop of fair hair and one round cheek visible.  Kill has taken off her helmet but the line pressed into her forehead by her arming cap has yet to fade, and her dark hair is flattened and mussed by the helmet’s weight. Cullen has to curl his hands to fists to keep from reaching out to run his fingers through the thick, straight locks until they are restored to their usual order. And then, perhaps, she could sleep against his shoulder, the broad smooth planes of her brow against his neck, the child shared between their laps. He longs to feel the weight of her, relaxed in trusting sleep, as intensely as he’s ever longed for lyrium.

 

Even with the glow of firelight on her cheeks, she is white with weariness beneath the honeyed tan that even the Frostbacks has yet to fade, the thin scars that track down her cheek and neck barely visible, and Cullen notices as if for the first time how close one of those trailing lines comes to the thick blue vein beneath her jaw. _If she’d been a half-second slower to sense the Abomination’s movement and turn her head_ …

 

It is not the only scar she has that testifies to a wound that could easily have taken her life, had the circumstances of it been only slightly different. Cullen has a few of those himself: a reminder of mortality every time he bathes.

 

It’s a minority, in their line of work, who make old bones.

 

For years that has been a comforting thought: _this has to end sometime, and perhaps it will even be soon_. But now he suddenly finds he wants very much to have all the years of a long life, all the years with Killeen, of learning what else she can find to complain about and what obscene and scatological terms she’ll use to do so. Years of watching her sleep like this, of hearing her tell him he’s slow on his leftward parry, years of seeing the changes time will bring to her face, years of her dry jokes, of the way she holds a mug of tea in both cupped hands and inhales the steam as if it’s the key to eternal life, and the line of her neck and shoulders when she leans over his desk to read a report.

 

He wants to know her when she has grey hair.

 

She opens her eyes and looks up at him and for an instant he almost says _Marry me, Killeen Hanmount._

 

But this isn’t the time, or the place, and she’s never given him any sign of wanting his attentions in that way. Even if she had, and even if they were in a restaurant in Val Royeaux or a meadow in Honnleath or where-ever Varric’s novels would recommend— how could he offer any woman, least of all Killeen, a future — now, when the very world’s future is in doubt?

 

Or when his own future holds the hazards of lyrium withdrawal, which Cassandra has warned him will get worse before there’s any chance it will get better.

 

Or take a demon to his marriage bed.

 

“Quite the picture,” he says instead.

 

Kill’s mouth curves, the faintest spark in her tired eyes. “Mercenary with spoils of war?”

 

Cullen sinks down beside her, shoulder against hers. He’s too tired, too cold, for the contact to kindle more than a brief pulse of desire, in amidst the relief and comfort of her company.

 

If there are words for what he needs to tell her, he will find them tomorrow — for there will be a tomorrow, now. “Something like,” he says, as Killeen settles the girl more comfortably and leans against him with a sigh.

 

In fact, it’s _nothing like_.

 

The first word that came to his mind when he saw them was _family_.


	11. Hand In Glove

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which some things are repaired, and others broken.

He’ll tell her about the lyrium, first, Cullen decides as they trudge after the Herald through the mountains. He has some idea of what’s coming as the last of it leaves his system in the weeks and months ahead. The moments of nausea, the occasional stabbing pain his his temples, which he has been coping with since before Haven … just a preview of how bad it could become.

 

As he takes his turn at the front of the column with the Herald, Cullen remembers Templars he’s seen driven to the extremes of the addiction they all share, put on short rations as punishment for some infraction or other, and the thought of becoming like them chills him: pitiable wrecks of men, weeping and begging for _a little, just a little more,_ breaking open the bottles that hold their daily ration to lick the shards with bloodied tongues.

 

But he _could_ become like them, and Kill should know. Not just because it’s hardly fair to tell a woman that you love her while withholding that kind of truth — but because she’s his Second, and it would be irresponsible not to tell her about something that could have a disastrous effect on his ability to do his job.

 

_And that raises a new and different problem._

 

Barracks room liaisons are discouraged, but largely ignored between equal ranks or those in different companies. Between the Commander of the Inquisition and his Second in Command, however … one of them would have to leave their position, and Cullen can’t see a way for either of them to be dispensable.

 

And then he laughs at how he’s getting ahead of himself. _She’s not given you so much as a sidelong glance to indicate she sees you like in that way._

 

“Something funny?” Lady Trevelyan pants. The thin air and the exertion has them all gasping for breath. “Share, Cullen, I could use a joke.”

 

“I’m afraid I only know the one joke, and you’ve heard it.” She flounders in a drift and he takes her arm to help her through it. “No, I realised I was trying to solve a problem that might not even arise.”

 

“Isn’t that what Commanders do?” she asks as he hauls her up. “Foresee problems? What sort of problem, anyway. Do I need to worry about something?”

 

“Not at all,” he assures her. “It’s simply a disciplinary matter. A question of fraternisation.”

 

“Oh, good,” she says breathlessly. “Because I have just about enough things to worry about, what with unstoppable demon armies, Elder Ones, and oh, this fucking snow.”

 

“Ride in one of the sleds for a little,” Cullen suggests, but she shakes her head.

 

“They have to see me.”

 

She’s right, and Cullen’s ashamed of his preoccupation with what is, after all, a purely personal problem, and not even an urgent one: he can simply say nothing for the duration of their campaign. He will still see Kill every day, catch the sly smile that presages her worst and filthiest jokes, see her bend as graceful as a cat as she limbers up before training, hands flat to the ground and the muscles of her legs taut and —

 

_Maker’s breath._ The most purely personal aspect of his preoccupation makes itself immediately, almost painfully, known.

 

He makes an excuse to Lady Trevelyan, turns and slogs back through the snow toward the sleds. By the time he gets there, he has himself under control, manages to have a long conversation with the lead drover without once letting his mind wander.

 

But it’s perhaps just as well that the exigencies of their trek keep him trudging from one end of the column to the other, keep him from snatching more than a few hours, here and there, with Kill.

 

And those hours are scarcely private — Kill’s taken the child, _Felandris_ , and her mother, under her protection. The girl's father is in the Hinterlands, with Corporal Vale, and the mother is barely able to keep up with the convoy. The little girl’s strength is not equal to their journey, although she is game and dogged, and many times when Cullen falls back through the slow procession to check on the rearguard, he passes Kill with Fel in her arms, doubly burdened by pack and child. 

 

He stops to help, as time and duty permit, at first to be rewarded by Killeen’s quick smile of gratitude as she yields her exhausted passenger to his arms, to have a reason to walk beside her for a while, to hear her voice and watch the quick flick of her wrist with which she brushes snow from her shoulders. Then, though, he finds himself looking forward to seeing Fel as well, listening to her chatter, hearing her laugh as he hoists her to his shoulders and tells her she is a chevalier and he, her steed. In the evenings he makes a point of stopping by their campfire, Fel asking _Tell me a story, Ser Bear_ , falling asleep in moments when he obliges.

 

But there is no moment he can find for private conversation. He can’t say _I need to tell you something about Templars_ with Fel a sleeping weight against his shoulder and her mother dozing by the fire nearby, and he certainly can’t ask Kill if she could ever see him as more than a friend.

 

Nor can he do what he wants to do, which is stay the night by their fire, beside Kill in the dark, perhaps suggest they share their blankets against the cold … seeking his own bed, from which a messenger from Leliana or Cassandra will inevitably summon him in a few hours, he imagines Kill’s head tucked into the hollow of his shoulder, her breath whispering against his skin, her heart beating against his as he, perhaps, runs his hand down the long smooth line of her back to —

 

There is a damnable lack of privacy for _anything_ , on their march.

 

Skyhold is scarcely better. Imposing as the fortress is, it is in considerable disrepair, and at first they are all reduced to tents in the courtyards until, gradually, stairs are reinforced, corridors cleared, rooms made safe. At the same time, there are urgent matters of arms and armour, of equipping and training volunteers to replace the men and women they lost at Haven. Lady Trevelyan, the Inquisitor now, is eager to take the fight to Corypheus, and that brings its own attendant tasks and reports for her Commander. Cullen finds himself hardly seeing Killeen except for brief exchanges of information and orders.

 

Until the day someone nearby whispers _Look, it’s the Inquisitor_ and he looks up from his desk in the courtyard to see Lady Trevelyan and Killeen on the stairs.

 

They are deep in some conversation, Kill leaning toward the smaller woman with a hand on her arm, a posture he recognises very well — Killeen Hanmount making a point. By the look of her — armour off, sleeves rolled to the elbow, cobwebs in her hair — she’s been assessing another part of the keep for its suitability to house their expanding population.

 

She lets go of Lady Trevelyan, steps back slightly, moves from shadow into sun. The light shines through the cambric of her shirt and silhouettes the body beneath, powerful shoulders and back tapering to a narrow, muscular waist, strikes mahogany glints from her hair, catches the edge of her wide, flexible mouth and the firm line of her jaw. Cullen imagines tracing the path of that ray of sunlight with his fingers, first her thick, heavy hair, then her lips, soft beneath the callouses on his fingertips. Then jaw, neck, the line of her collarbone … the breasts he can see outlined against the light, small and firm. Her lips part at his touch, her eyes closing, she says _yes, please, Cullen_ , she says _kiss me_ , she says _hold me, take me, please, yes …_

 

Killeen turns, and their eyes meet.

 

He spins away, rubbing the back of his neck, wondering how clear his thoughts had been on his face, wondering too if she’s noticed the effect of those thoughts on his body. He leans over the table, slightly dizzy, tells himself it’s lyrium but knows, rather, that it’s because the blood that should be supplying his brain is instead concentrated somewhat lower.

 

_The Inquisitor_. Cullen gathers himself, manages to make sensible replies to her questions, fends off an invitation from Dorian Pavus to “play chess” which he suspects may be a euphemism, or a prelude, to something else — and finds himself face to face with Killeen.

 

“I thought you enjoyed chess,” she says.

 

He answers, hardly aware of what he’s saying, hardly aware of the desk beneath his hands or the ground beneath his feet, hardly aware of anything but the smudge of dirt she wears on one elegant cheekbone and his aching need to take her face in his hands and smooth it away.

 

Then she suggests he tell Dorian he’s in love, and his heart stops. _She knows. She knows how I feel._ He hardly dares look at her, steals a glance and sees no uneasiness, no distaste in her expression at the idea.

 

“Well, that, uh. Seems like it would be a bit precipitous. Under current circumstances.” He steals another glance. “Wouldn’t it?”

 

“I think it’s well overdue, frankly, under current circumstances.”

 

And now he stares at her. _Well overdue. Has she been waiting for me to speak? How long?_

 

She sighs, the sigh that says as clear as words _Don’t be a bigger fool than you were born, Cullen Rutherford_. “You can’t go around looking at a woman like a starving man looks at a ram haunch and expect me not to notice.”

 

It’s not a flattering analogy but he has to admit it’s probably a fair one. “Foolish to think I could keep a secret from you, I suppose.”

 

He had imagined more romance — imagined he would tell her what she meant to him, how for him the sun rose not in the east but wherever _she_ stood, how he longed to love and hold and cherish her for all the days of his life. Killeen, however, is a pragmatic woman, and turns immediately to practical questions: whether to tell the Inquisitor, how to prevent problems with the chain of command. She suggests they have a _secret affair_ as casually as she might suggest they have stew for dinner.

 

And _Maker_ , it’s going to happen. Cullen doesn’t care that he hasn’t told her any of the things he’d planned to say long before they came to this point, hasn’t told her about lyrium, about the nature of the dreams that haunt him. _Later_. Right now all he cares about is the likelihood of finding an empty room with a door that locks in the next five minutes. If it has a bed, that will be a bonus, but right now he doesn’t consider it a necessity.

 

But he must, at least, apologise to her for his reticence, explain that he hadn’t been certain of his reception should he speak. “I suppose I haven’t wanted to …” Not looking at her, he says awkwardly: “There’s nothing more unpleasant than, ah … being on the receiving end of unwanted attention of that, um. Kind.”

 

“Of course,” Kill says, voice suddenly flat. When Cullen looks at her, her face has gone utterly blank, the parade rest face she uses to disguise strong emotion, an expression he has never been able to read except to know it means distress. “Anything else, ser?”

 

He goes from exaltation to uncertainty in an instant. “Kill?”

 

“ _Anything else, ser_?” she asks again, clearly desperate to end the conversation, and uncertainty turns to despair. He has misunderstood, somehow, or mis-stepped.

 

She flees from him, from the idea of him, almost at a run, as if she can’t get away fast enough, as if his very presence has become intolerable to her now she knows how he feels.

 

Cullen closes his eyes, makes his mind blank. _Let him take notice and shine upon thee, for thou has done His work on this day, and the stars stood still, the winds did quiet, and all animals of earth and air held their breath, and all was silent in prayer and thanks._

 

The words, for once, are hollow.

 

He has nothing to be thankful for.

 


	12. From Afar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Killeen contends with inventory, rocks, and sand, and Cullen contends with demons.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You've all been so quick to read the last chapter, here's another as a present! (but don't forget to give the previous one some commenting love if you haven't)

It is not only Cullen’s presence Killeen now finds intolerable: she cannot bear to even be in same keep as him. When she asks to be posted elsewhere, he feels a stab of desolation at the loneliness ahead, but can’t refuse her.

 

It’s him, after all, who’s ruined the easy friendship they had, with his foolish, selfish idea that he could have more of her than she wanted to give, that he could have _all_ of her, that she would want all of him.

 

Skyhold is cold and grey with Kill gone, and the half-finished repairs seem to stall, rooms left with gaping holes and piles of rubble by the gate. The lyrium leeching from his body doesn’t help: the nausea becoming more frequent, more severe, bouts of pain and physical weakness striking unexpectedly, and always, always the dreams, dreams from which he now has no-one to wake him from.

 

He commandeers an office, convenient to the Great Hall but far enough away to discourage casual visits from the Inquisitor or his fellow advisers, takes to sleeping in the loft above despite the gaps in walls and roof. Works late, works until dawn some nights, knowing he’ll pay a steeper price the next day but unable to face the bed, the darkness, unable to face _do you like this? How about this?_ There’s always work, after all, always a mountain of work now there’s no-one he can rely on to not only make decisions but make the _right_ ones.

 

When there’s need for a crew to solve a problem on the Exalted Plains, he thinks of Kill at Haven, _Hey, can we save the world somewhere **warm** after this?_ Sends a message that takes him entirely too much time to compose, struggling to strike exactly the right note of friendship and nothing more. Three short sentences takes him over an hour and five crumpled parchments but finally it’s sealed and sent.

 

About to head to the stables, a wave of pain hits him, the worst so far, leaving him shaking and sweating and only on his feet because of his grip on the edge of his desk. For the first time he’s whole-heartedly glad Kill isn’t here, to see him like this.

 

For the first time, he thinks _I don’t think I can do this._

 

The pain and weakness, the nausea that has him heaving up his guts twice or three times a day, that he could ride out, he thinks. If he could sleep. But sleep brought —

 

“There was a Templar,” Cole says from directly behind him and Cullen nearly jumps out of his skin.

 

“ _Cole_.” The boy can read thoughts and Cullen deliberately makes his own calm and peaceful as his pulse begins to slow. “Please, this is not a good —”

 

Cole ignores him. “There was a Templar. He looked at one of the mages. She made his body feel different. _Bitch, slut, whore._ She died of what he did to her. It wasn’t right.”

 

Realising the only way he’s likely to get out of this conversation is by walking out of the room, which he’s not physically able to do at this moment, Cullen sinks into his chair. “It was very wrong.”

 

“If he didn’t like how his body felt, why did he let it?”

 

_Oh, Maker’s breath._ With his head beginning to pound is really not the time he’d choose to explain desire to this strange, fey creature. And even at the best of times, he’d hardly nominate _himself_ as the most suitable person to advise on the subject. But for all his strangeness, Cole is flesh and blood, and therefore may well have not only a body but a body’s attendant needs. And he has unknowable powers, uncanny strength, and Skyhold is full of women and girls — and men and boys for that matter — who could not possibly defend themselves against him.

 

Cullen chooses his words carefully. “Sometimes, a man’s body has a mind of its own.”

 

“My body has a mind,” Cole says, perching on the desk and looking down at him. “It’s in here.” He taps his temple.

 

“No, I – our, ahem. Parts,” Cullen says. “Respond to certain sights, or other … respond. Without our control of them.”

 

Cole frowns. “He couldn’t help what he did?”

 

“He couldn’t help how his body responded,” Cullen corrects. “A man can always help what he does, or says, even if he can’t control his, ah. Parts.”

 

“Bodies are more complicated than I expected,” Cole says. “Do women have parts too?”

 

Cullen feels his face flame. “Yes. Different, ah. Sort. It, well. If you do feel, ah, perhaps then would be a better time to talk about it. Perhaps to Varric. Just remember, it’s very wrong to do what that Templar did. It’s very wrong to do anything of that, um. Nature. To someone who doesn’t agree.”

 

“Maker, no, leave me alone,” Cole says. “Stroking, licking, what kind of man must I be to have this feel so good? That was wrong.”

 

Cullen closes his eyes, manages to say: “Yes.” _The Hero-not-Hero, smiling, touching. Do you like this? How about this?_ Forces the thought down, sweating, nauseated, fists clenched — and soft as an infant.

 

Hears his own voice. _He couldn’t help how his body responded._

 

“Bodies don’t have minds of their own,” Cole says quietly. “Bodies don’t have _minds_. Bodies just feel. If I touch a candle-flame, my finger hurts, my arm pulls back. You _said_ no.” He cocks his head to one side. “You’ll get better, now.”

 

And, in that unseen and unknowable way of his, he goes.

 

Cullen sits at his desk staring at his paperwork, seeing none of it, for quite some time before he finally pulls himself together enough to remember he had been on his way to the stables.

 

At the end of the day he is so exhausted by the constant strain of pretending nothing ails him, squinting to read through the dazzle of pain in his temples, swallowing back bile when his stomach heaves, that he has no choice but to go to bed or know he’ll fall asleep at his desk.

 

_Do you like this? How about this? He says no, he always says no, says stop, but he can’t keep his body from saying yes and she laughs._

 

_But his body is not his mind, his body feels and reacts but his mind says no, and this is his dream, in his mind, and so he reaches down and takes her by the throat, lifts her off her feet, crushing her windpipe. Her face purples as she claws at his hands and he wonders how he could ever have thought she looked like the Hero. She is nothing like the Hero, she is nothing but a demon with a demon’s cheap and nasty tricks, and he chokes and chokes her until her eyes bulge and her feet stop kicking —_

 

Wakes with his pillow in a death grip, heart pounding with rage.

 

His nights become no more restful, and he still dreads them, but more and more often he finds himself pushing the demon away from him instead of whimpering helplessly beneath her ministrations, finds himself battering her with his fists, pounding her head to a bloody mess against the floor. _No, I said no, I said **stop**!_

 

And when one morning he does wake to find himself hard, rubbing against the mattress, he has no memory of demon dreams and no slime of demon taint oozing across his mind. Flashes on _dark hair — skinning off her shirt and stooping over the washbasin, muscles of her rump clear against the thin fabric of her breeches_ — his hips pump involuntarily, fists clenched in the sheets.

 

It’s not right, to take his pleasure in the thought of a woman who has made it more than clear the idea of him as a romantic partner horrifies her, but it’s a normal, _human_ kind of not-right, not the twisted demon wrongness that threatened his soul and sanity. She need never know, and he will never indulge himself like this again, but the sweetness of feeling his body respond to thoughts he _chooses_ is irresistible. _Flushed and moaning beneath his touch, whispering please, whispering yes_ — he gasps _Killeen_ and comes with a force that leaves him limp and boneless, without even the strength or will to roll away from the dampness on the sheet. 

 

She need never know. She _must_ never know, Maker, she’d never want to see him again, never be able to talk to him without wondering if he was storing up memories of her lips, her hands, the curve of her thigh, for private review later.

 

He refuses to admit that in all likelihood, that’s exactly what he’d be doing.

 

Because he has to find a way to stop thinking about her in those terms, if they’re ever to be friends again. Has to stop remembering the way she looked, silhouetted by the light on the stairs, thinking of her fingers with a dozen tiny nicks and scars curled around a mug, of the way she likes to sit with one foot tucked beneath her, of how her skin would feel beneath his hands, a map of scars traced over a smooth canvas, how she would arch her back to press her breasts more firmly against his hands, how she would gasp his name …

 

Cullen groans, thumps his head against the mattress. _Never again._

 


	13. Back To Back

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Inquisitor saves the day

“Is that all for the day?” Cullen knows his voice is unwarrantedly sharp. Their war room meeting has not gone on unusually long but to him, it feels like an age has passed. Even with his cloak the chill in the room has him shivering, and the sharp light from the windows scratches at his eyes like glass.

 

“Corporal Vale tells us the Hinterlands are secure,” Josephine says. “The Storm Coast is still experiencing some instability, but there are no more rifts.”

 

He concentrates. “With rifts contained in the area, we can send in smaller troops to offer relief.”

  
“I agree,” Leliana says. “Are you well? 

“Yes, a headache,” he tells her. It’s not a lie: his temples are being crushed in a vice. “Nothing more.” That is a lie, and he prays the Spymaster will not detect it. “If that's all...?”

 

“Not quite. A report from the Exalted Plains — the crew working at Ghilan'nain's Grove.”

 

Ghilan'nain's Grove. _Kill, needs your touch_ , he’d written as a post-script to the orders sending her there. _At least it’ll be warm. I’m sending beer._ Three sentences that had taken him an hour to compose. “What does it say?”

 

Leliana holds out a message cylinder to him, still sealed with the Inquisition seal. “I do not know. It is addressed to you, Commander.”

 

He takes the cylinder. It is, indeed, addressed to him, in Killeen’s unmistakable spiky scrawl. Opening other people’s messages is not something the Spymaster has ever baulked at before, but Cullen decides to be grateful for small mercies, or perhaps not to look gift horses in the mouth, or both.

 

Sliding his thumbnail beneath the seal, he stops. What has Kill written to him? Is it to tell him she is coming back? Something more personal, perhaps, about his unwarranted attempt to press his attentions on her. Even ... that she has changed her mind? That she misses him, longs for him, as he misses and longs for her?

 

He realises that Josephine, Leliana, and the Inquisitor, are all watching him expectantly.

 

“I'll, uh.” He tucks the message in a pocket. “Read this later. It won't be urgent."

 

“As you wish,” Leliana says and he is not quite sure what to make of her tone. Or her smile.

 

Cullen clears his throat. “If that's all. Do excuse me, ladies.”

 

He’s not quite sure, either, what to make of Josephine’s tone as she says: “Of course.” Or of _her_ smile.

 

Back in his office, he takes out the message cylinder, turns it over and over between his fingers. It could contain anything — until he opens it. Finally he breaks the seal with hands that tremble — one more irritating side effect of lyrium withdrawal — unrolls it, reads:

 

_The tunnel is open, and the chief engineer didn't kill anyone, despite his best efforts. There are Gurguts at the other end, which I'm taking a command decision and calling the Inquisitor’s problem. Awaiting further orders. KH. PS your idea of necessary quantities of ale entirely insufficient._

 

He reads it twice, traces the sharp downward strokes of her _p_ and _q_ with one finger. It sounds entirely like her, down to the joke at the end — he's not a heavy drinker, and she's never missed a chance to remind him of his limited tolerance since the night in Kirkwall he’d had to lean on her to get back to barracks after what Killeen called _just six beers_. It sounds entirely like her, it sounds entirely normal, as if nothing has changed between them. He allows himself to hope that is the case — but what of _awaiting further orders_? Is she hinting that she doesn't want to return yet, asking him to let her stay at a distance, at least for a little longer?

 

_Oh,Maker, Kill, come **back**._

 

He’s been glad that she has not been here to witness his weakness, but at the thought of her return he finds he doesn’t care, any more, that she might see him shivering with chill on a warm day, or retching helplessly into his wastepaper basket, or unable to stand unaided, trembling and sweating. He wants her with him, wants to hear her steady voice murmur reassurance, wants to know that he can close his eyes and leave the urgent decisions to her for a few moments.

 

But that is absurdly selfish, when she had been so eager to leave.

 

He dips his pen, waits until the fine tremor in his hand eases, and signs the order that will send Killeen to Death Drink Springs.

 

A week later, the order comes to move on Adamant.

 

They are optimistic, despite the odds.

 

Unreasonably optimistic, Cullen realises, as the tower falls, the Inquisitor with it, as what is left of the Inquisition’s forces defend the courtyard with some hideous demon pressing against the rift overhead.

 

_At least Kill is safe._

 

There are plans in place should they be defeated: messages will go, swiftly, surely, to Inquisition forces. They will scatter, to regroup if possible, to escape if not. Killeen is strong, and quick, and clever: Cullen would bet on her above any other to survive Corypheus’s revenge. He wonders if he should hope there will be a chance for her to reach Skyhold, to take Fel and her mother into hiding with her, or if he should hope there won’t be. A solider alone has much more chance of eluding pursuit than a solider with a small child, however determined and quick-witted that child may be.

 

A nimbus of red envelops the demons in front of him and they waver and begin to flee. _Fear spell._ Cullen cuts them down and turns.   Dorian stands on the stairs leading down to the courtyard, and beside him —

 

His mind goes blank with shock. It’s impossible, but even at this distance, Killeen’s unmistakable — the way she stands, the set of her head. Killeen, here, in Adamant, as the Inquisition forces go down in blood and fire. _No_ , he thinks numbly, _no, she’s safe, she’s safe_ and then she turns her head and he sees that half her face is blistered and bleeding, her armour scorched and dented, she’s lost her shield and her helmet.

 

And despite it all, she raises her sword and runs toward him as more demons come through the rift.

 

Shoulder to shoulder with him, and then as their forces begin to falter and the line breaks, back to back. She knows his blindspots and his bad habits, as he knows hers, and there’s no-one he’d rather have with him in a desperate fight to the death … except this time, it’s going to be _their_ deaths.

 

Her death.

 

He can feel her tiring, already wounded, knows he is himself at the limits of a strength sapped by weeks of poor sleep, by the pain and nausea that has dogged him even in the battle. Soon one of them will fall, and the other cannot hope to stand alone.

 

Cullen hopes, selfishly, as he hacks and slashes and stabs with the strength of desperation, that it will be him who goes down first, that he will not have to watch her die.

 

Then the Inquisitor steps out of the Fade, raises her hand, and slams the rift shut.

 

They are alive.

 

Killeen spits and gags and starts to rub at her face with one gauntleted hand. Cullen seizes her wrist before she can do worse damage to the torn skin and uses what’s left in his water flask to rinse away the phosphorescent demon slime. She needs the healers, but someone is calling for his attention — something about the Wardens — and he can only send her to them, not take her himself. She is on her feet, she is walking, the blood is only oozing slowly from her wounds — he orders her to _go_ , turns back to the next urgent task for the Commander of the Inquisition.

 

And the next urgent task, and the one after it, an avalanche of them, decisions that only Cullen can make, orders only he can sign. He works through them as fast as he can, aware every moment that it is not as fast as he should be able to, as he would have once been able to, that the headache that has crushed his temples for days has his thoughts moving more sluggishly than they should, that the care he has to take to keep the tremor in his hand from showing in his script makes every note and signature take twice as long.

 

Finally he wins a small clear space from the demands of duty, strides toward the healer’s tent.

 

Finds Killeen slumped in the long queue of walking wounded, vomiting foam and blood, eyes rolling in her head as her lips turn blue.

 

Cullen ruthlessly crushes panic, hauls her over his shoulder and carries her into the tent. Is surprised by how calm his voice is as he summons help.

 

Wants, once her wounds are healed, to shake her until her teeth rattle. Wants to wrap her in his arms and reassure himself through each and every sense that she is here, alive, not a broken corpse in the courtyard above.

 

Wants to lead her to his tent and strip her armour from her, caress every inch of her skin and watch the flush of pleasure rising in her cheeks, watch her eyes darken and close, her lips part.

 

Does none of these things. Picks his words with care, promises her he won’t repeat his mistake without embarrassing her by spelling out exactly what it was.

 

Almost weeps with relief when she agrees to return to Skyhold with him.


	14. Beside Each Other

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which people lie to themselves, and each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posting more quickly because it’s the weekend - don’t forget to give each chapter some love!

_I said no, I said stop, I said no!_

 

_Cullen’s hands are around the demon’s neck, squeezing tighter and tighter. She struggles, but it’s the demon who is helpless now, he has her pinned beneath him and —_

 

Pain explodes across his face and he is awake, in his own room with the moonlight falling through the gaps in the ceiling and casting shadows across the floor.

 

And his hands are around Killeen’s neck.

 

He recoils, and she dumps him off her and rolls away, wheezing — then rises in a defensive crouch when he moves toward her. She is defending herself against _him_ , Cullen realises — and she has reason to.

 

“Kill, Maker, _Kill_ , are you all right?”

 

“Yes.” Her voice is hoarse, and he flinches at the evidence of how badly he’s hurt her. “Are you?”

 

He is in no way _all right_. His knees buckle at the thought of what he’d almost done, what he would have done in another few seconds. His apologies are entirely inadequate, _any_ apology would be entirely inadequate — because he should have known, should have foreseen, should have _warned_ her. Maker knows he’s woken himself driving his fist into the bed-head, or throttling his pillow. How could he not have even considered Killeen would be in danger from him?

 

He can barely get the words out. _Sorry, so sorry. I was back there — I’m so sorry._ They are not enough, he knows they are not enough and Killeen is certainly not going to be satisfied. _I’ll be damned if I’ll let you choke me to death just to avoid an awkward conversation_ , she tells him, and then fills him with panic when she pulls her hand from his and stands to leave.

 

At the thought of being alone in the dark with the memory of what he’s done and the imagination of what he’d almost done, all Cullen’s vows to himself that he would keep things casual, _normal_ , between them are forgotten. He reaches for her, and when she demands his honesty as her price, he tells her. From the beginning, because it’s easier to talk about the Templars in general than about _himself_ , but eventually, as she holds his hand in her own firm grasp, about himself as well — his weakness, his craving, the slow and seemingly endless process of his body purging itself of its addiction.

 

And tells her, too, that he will give up, he will abandon what freedom from lyrium he has gained, to keep her safe from him.

 

He is utterly relieved and at the same time completely unsurprised when she refuses to allow it — with, of course, a joke, because this is Killeen Hanmount after all, and he’s yet to discover a circumstance in which she can’t find a way to make him laugh.

 

Her hand is warm and strong around his own chilled fingers and for a moment, in the shadows and the flicker of the moonlight through the leaves intruding through the roof, he almost thinks she will lean toward him, that she will take his face between her hands and kiss him, that he can lay his head against her shoulder and close his eyes and rest.

 

The conviction is so strong that when she doesn’t move he feels a keen pang of loss, sharp enough to bring tears.

 

Killeen holds his hand, and kindly pretends not to hear him weeping, as they sit beside each other in the dark.


	15. In Her Steps

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Killeen takes on a new responsibility.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This scene is not in the Side By Side “In Her Steps”. It is a different evening to the one described in that chapter, one of the 'many nights' referred to.

The candlelight limns Kill’s cheek and lips, draws a mahogany glow from her hair as she leans over the battered copy of the Chant of Light Cullen lent her. Lips moving silently, she closes her eyes, then opens them again, frowning, to check her memory of the words.

 

Watching her, Cullen can’t help feeling quite pleased with the success of his stratagem. _Killeen Hanmount, inveterate blasphemer, who only darkens the door of a Chantry if there’s someone inside to arrest, praying._

 

_Not_ , he has to admit, _with any fervour or conviction, but it’s a start._

 

He had never cared, in Kirkwall, in Haven, that she was less than devout. But Adamant — he’d heard, from Dorian, a brief and no doubt edited account of the mage’s discovery of Kill’s all-but-lifeless body, had thought they both were doomed in the courtyard, had found her moments from suffocating from the toxic effects of demon blood. Three times, in the space of hours, she had come far too close to death. As unbearable as that thought was, worse was the imagination of her wandering the drifting roads of the Beyond, lost not only from this life but lost forever.

 

Fel had provided his opportunity. _If you’re going to let her stay out of school, Kill, then you have to make sure she learns more than just adding up wagonloads and intimidating crooked merchants._

 

And so Kill sat, night after night, whispering the holy words.

 

Perhaps with time, they’d take.

 

“Many are those who wander in sin, despairing that they are lost forever,” Kill mutters. “But the one who relents —”

 

“ _Repents_ ,” Cullen corrects.

 

She slams the book shut. “Oh, Maker’s balls!” At his half-voiced protest: “I don’t know why you get all worked up by my saying it, given it was the Maker’s balls that started the whole thing.”

 

“ _Kill_.”

 

She turns to look at him. “He got the hots for Andraste and turned the world upside down to please her. I’m glad I’m not likely to attract the attention of any deity so lacking in a sense of proportion. What about a nice bunch of flowers, or a ring?”

 

Her summary is not _inaccurate_ , not entirely, but it is hardly one the Chantry would condone. “He was in _love_ with her.”

 

“Exactly,” Kill says, and tosses the book onto her bedroll. “He saw her, _went there’s the lady for me, thank you very much_ and then spent several decades and a whole lot of holy war trying to get into her pants. You know, now I think of it, Maker’s cock is appropriate too. Although a little harder to explain if it slips out in front of Fel.”

 

For one mind-numbing moment Cullen envisions Killeen trying to explain away the Maker’s indecent exposure to the constitutionally sceptical Fel, and then he takes her meaning. “Uh. What do you say when she hears you say Makers, um. Balls.”

 

“I tell her he liked kick-about keep-away,” Killeen says blandly, and surprises him into a whoop of laughter. “How I’m going to explain to her that it’s all right to chase another man’s wife, but only if you’re a god, I’m _not_ sure.”

 

“That’s not —” he protests. “The Maker’s love for Andraste was pure, as was her love for him.”

 

She stands, stretches the kinks from her back, and Cullen loses his train of thought at the arch of her body, the way the movement presses her breasts against the fabric of her shirt. Turning, she raises an eyebrow, and he realises she’s said something he’s entirely failed to hear. Realises, too, he’d better turn to his side or Killeen will detect the nature of his preoccupation. “Pardon?”

 

“I said, sounds like a boring eternity, then.” She grins. “But I bet you’re wrong. I bet they’re at it like rabbits on that Golden Throne.”

 

He rolls over, stifles a gasp at the friction of the sheet. “It’s not something I think about,” he says primly — and not entirely honestly because now he _is_ thinking about it, although Andraste has Killeen’s face and the Golden Throne looks a lot like the Inquisitor’s Chair in the Great Hall. _One long leg thrown carelessly over the arm, reaching up to grip the headrest, fists clenching, back arching as he —_

 

_Stop it_! he tells himself sternly, tries to command his cock to subside.

 

“Oh, Cullen,” Kill says with affection as she blows out the candle. “You’re such a _Templar_.”

 

He hears the rustle of her bedclothes. His voice is reasonably steady as he says: “ _Ex_ -Templar.”

 

“If you’re going to be an _ex_ -Templar, you need to learn to swear. Properly.” There is a note of merry mischief in her voice.

 

“I do swear,” he objects.

 

“ _Maker’s breath_!” she mimics. “You sound like a Chantry sister. Or a little old lady who keeps cats. Come on. Give it a go.”

 

“I, um. I’m not sure I —”

 

“Cul- _len_ ,” she cajoles. “Repeat after me. Andraste’s tits.”

 

_Oh, this is **not** helping_. “Andraste’s, ah. Tits.”

 

“Passable. Maker’s balls.”

 

“ _Kill_.”

 

“Maker’s balls,” she repeats implacably.

 

“Maker’s balls,” he mumbles.

 

“Good!” she says cheerfully. “Tomorrow we’ll work on a few of the complicated ones. Andraste’s frilly knickers, that the Maker took so long to get her out of. Andraste’s rosy nipples. Maker’s throbbing cock.”

 

_**My** throbbing cock_. Cullen sighs. He is definitely not going to sleep tonight. “ _Good night_ , Kill.”

 

She mistakes the tension in his voice for exasperation, and laughs. “Good night, _ex_ -Templar.”

 

_Then in the center of heaven, He called forth a city with towers of gold,_ Cullen repeats silently _. Streets with music for cobblestones, and banners which flew without wind._

 

But after the conversation they’ve just had, the images the Chant brings to mind are … less than helpful. 


	16. In His Cups

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which someone drowns their sorrows

For the third time in three games, Lady Trevelyan checkmates him in less than twenty moves. Cullen tips his king over with one finger and looks up to find her studying him.

 

“What’s wrong?” she asks. “Is it the lyrium? I thought it was getting a little better.”

 

“It is,” he assures her quickly. “No I — forgive me, Inquisitor. I’ve been preoccupied, I know.”

 

She starts to set up the pieces again. “Anything I can help with?”

 

Cullen glances to the archway as he catches movement in the corner of his eye, but it’s just a gardener, not Kill looking for him. “I’m afraid not. It’s merely a personal matter.” Hardly on the scale of, say, the collapse of their Qunari alliance, from which this chess game is supposed to provide the Inquisitor with at least a brief distraction. 

 

Lady Trevelyan takes white, moves a pawn. “There’s nothing _mere_ about personal matters.” She pauses. “You should tell her, you know.”

 

He looks up from the board, startled. “Tell —”

 

“Tell your Kill how you feel about her, instead of just following her around with your eyes when she’s not looking and completely failing to give me a decent game.”

 

“I —” She raises an eyebrow, lips curled, amusement and warning at the same time. _I know. And I’m the Inquisitor. Don’t lie to **me** , Cullen Rutherford._ “I didn’t realise I’d been so obvious.” He moves a knight, almost at random.

 

“Don’t worry. It’s only obvious because I know.” At the look on his face, she laughs. “I knew back in Haven, Cullen, the way you talk about her.”

 

“ _I_ didn’t know, back in Haven,” he admits.

 

“So tell her.”

 

“There are chain-of-command issues,” he starts, and when she waves them away, “and she wouldn’t welcome it.”

 

“So sure?” She takes his knight, leaves a castle exposed.

 

He takes it, despite suspecting a trap. “I _did_ tell her.”

 

“And?”

 

“She ran away from me. Literally. And left for Crestwood. I can’t blame her.”

 

The Inquisitor closes the trap, and he tips over his king. Again.

 

She sits back, reaches for her wine goblet. “You could try to change her mind.”

 

“ _No_.” It comes out more forcefully than he’d expected. “I, that is. Respect her decision.”

 

Lady Trevelyan’s eyes widen, and then narrow thoughtfully. “Cullen, I’m not suggesting you drag her off to an empty room and have your wicked way with her regardless. _Woo_ her. Respectfully. Give her time to see you in a new light.”

 

Cullen shakes his head. “It’s better this way. I’m not exactly a prize as a prospective suitor,” he says, trying to make light of it.

 

“Because of what happened at the Circle Tower?” she asks, and then: “I heard what Cole said to you, Cullen. That night in the blizzard.”

 

He closes his eyes. “I had hoped you were unconscious.”

 

“I know. That’s why I haven’t — but Cullen, you can’t let it ruin your life.”

 

Opening his eyes, he avoids her gaze, concentrating on packing away the chess pieces. “It didn’t leave me particularly fit for female company.”

 

“It may be a medical issue, if it’s lasted this long,” Lady Trevelyan says thoughtfully.

 

“Oh — no, that’s not —” He can feel himself blushing. _Maker’s breath!_ He can’t believe he’s discussing his erections with the Inquisitor. “I mean —”

 

“Plumbing’s all in order?” she asks.

 

“Yes.” He shifts uncomfortably. “But I — have not been — ah, that is —”

 

She pours another goblet of wine and he accepts it gratefully. “No risk of little Cullens running around anywhere, is what you’re saying?”

 

“Absolutely none. And so I doubt I would … not that I would be _unable_ , but …” Somehow, whether it is because Lady Trevelyan already knows so many of his closely-guarded secrets or because she, too, must know what it is to long for a woman, without being a man who’d measure Cullen’s shortfalls against his own, he finds himself saying: “I doubt that it would be an experience she’d remember with any particular fondness.”

 

“Cullen,” the Inquisitor says, “do you mean to tell me that the gorgeous Commander of the Inquisition, who can break a dozen hearts just by riding through a town on market day, is a virgin?”

 

“I hardly think I qualify for that category,” Cullen says.

 

“Leaving aside what happened.”

 

“Yes, well. Leaving that aside.” _As if it could be_. “Perhaps. Obviously, I — well, I grew up with a boy’s natural curiosity and so I’ve _seen_ — ”

 

His goblet is empty, and the Inquisitor refills it, and then her own. “I feel like that, about … well, someone.” She blushes a bit, and then meets his gaze squarely. “Fair’s fair. About Josephine.”

 

“You mean you …” Cullen feels himself blush at the question.

 

“Oh, no. Plenty of times. But that doesn’t mean much. Every woman is different.”

 

He’s surprised out of his embarrassment, fascinated by the revelation. “They are?” She nods. “Then how do you _know_?”

 

“I pay attention,” she says. Her cheeks are a little flushed, and she takes a sip of wine. “Try different things, and watch and listen to see what she likes. A hypothetical she, in this case, I mean, in my case. I haven’t even kissed Josephine.”

 

He smiles. “You should tell her how you feel.”

 

“Caught in my own trap,” Lady Trevelyan says ruefully. “Anyway. If that’s all that’s stopping you, Cullen, then I hereby order you, as your Inquisitor, to go forth and —” she waves a hand. “Give her flowers, or something.”

 

“Kill’s not the flower type,” he points out.

 

“Then something else. You can work out the details. Buy her a drink. Spend time with her that isn’t working or fighting. And then … try again. She came back, didn’t she?”

 

“And then?” he asks, wanting to believe she’s right, and afraid she might be, in almost equal measure.

 

“Well.” Lady Trevelyan pours more wine for them both. “Go very slowly. Warm her up. Touch her, kiss her —” she makes an hourglass gesture with her hands, spilling a little wine. “Everywhere. Breasts are good, but so’s neck, shoulders, back, legs. If she sounds like _this_ —” She makes a high pitched squeak of discomfort. “You’re prolly on the wrong track. If she sounds like _this_ —” the Inquisitor lets her head fall back and gives a low moan that makes Cullen blush and turn his thoughts firmly away from how such a moan would sound in Killeen’s voice. “Then do whatever you were just doing again. And if she says _oh, Maker_ , tha’s a good sign. Or _yes, oh, yes_ , altho’ you cou’d prolly figure that out. In contest. Context.”

 

He thinks he probably could, yes. He also thinks it might be a good idea to move the flagon of wine out of the Inquisitor’s reach before she’s inspired to give him any further demonstrations that could, if overheard, lead to some unfortunate rumours.

 

Standing, he holds out his hand. “Allow me to walk you to your rooms, Inquisitor.”

 

She lets him help her up, staggers slightly, and clutches his arm. “Thank you,” she says with great dignity.

 

He has to half-carry her through the Great Hall, onlookers tactfully turning away as if there’s nothing unusual in the sight of the Inquisitor stumbling drunk. _And since she often drinks with the Chargers, perhaps there isn’t._ Once they’re through the door to her quarters, he abandons efforts to protect her dignity and carries her up the stairs over his shoulder, depositing her on the bed.

 

“Thanks,” she says, and closes her eyes. He turns to go, pauses as she says: “Rem’ber, Cullen. Is an _order_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't forget, fast chapters need love too!


	17. In The Rain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which someone wins a Pyrrhic victory.

It’s an order, so Cullen goes looking for Kill.

 

He finds her in the tavern, where the Chargers are celebrating their survival. She asks what happened, so he tells her, and somehow the conversation goes wrong. He patches it, or thinks he has, but when he comes back from the bar with her beer her eyes are distant, her face set hard.

 

Buys her another, and third, because she’s drinking fast, drinking to be drunk. He’s seen her like this before, although it takes him a moment to remember the context: Kirkwall.

 

They hadn’t been friends then, not yet — acquaintances at most, no more than a month or two after they’d first met outside the barricaded house of a family determined not to surrender their mage-child. Cullen had only been at the tavern that night because of some celebration he couldn’t remember, someone becoming an uncle or an aunt, perhaps. He’d nursed his one drink longer than he usually would, waiting to see if the stinging autumn rain would let up before he had to walk back to the Templar barracks.

 

And Killeen from the Kirkwall Guard, back in the days when the only scar she wore was a fleck of silver on her chin courtesy of a dwarf’s attempt at a head-butt, draining one mug and calling for another, flushed and loud and unsteady on her feet.

 

He’d gone over, meaning to suggest she take herself home before she did any more damage to the reputation of the uniform she wore, and —

 

_“Leave her,” one of her drinking companions says, and beneath the noise in the tavern, mutters something of which Cullen can only catch the words ‘three little kids’ and ‘scum’._

 

_He goes back to his seat, orders a second ale himself and sits not drinking it, watching the tall woman with the broad shoulders and the soft, grey eyes as she orders another mug, then another, and another. Others are watching, too, a couple of men by the door that Cullen doesn’t like the look of, doesn’t like the speculative expression on their faces as Killeen orders still more ale._

 

_When she announces to the tavern at large that she needs to piss like a horse and reels toward the door, those two men start to stand._

 

_Cullen gets to his feet, looking at them, and they sink back._

 

_He follows Killeen into the back alley, unsure if they might have friends waiting, and finds her bent double in the rain, hands on her knees. Cullen takes a step toward her, asks her if she’s all right._

 

_She vomits on his boots._

 

_“Maker, sorry,” she mutters, tries to turn away and loses her balance. There’s nothing for him to do but catch her before she falls down and so he finds himself bracing her as she coughs and retches and rids herself of a considerable quantity of alcohol as the rain runs down his neck and works its way under the neck of his cloak._

 

_Finally she straightens and wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. “Thanks. Sorry.” Raindrops streak her face like tears._

 

_He makes some polite demurral, then some idiotic remark about being more careful._

 

_She tells him, in comprehensive, vicious detail, what ‘careful’ means when a squad of guards wait for orders to break down a door instead of ignoring the regulations and it gives the man inside fifteen ugly minutes with the three small children he’s taken from the street._

 

_When she’s done, Cullen thinks he might vomit himself. “If you knew they were in there…”_

 

_“We were there to take him in for non-payment of taxes.” Weary now, anger spent. “He **thought** we knew.”_

 

_“I’m —” sorry, except it’s useless. “I’ll walk you back to your barracks.”_

 

_“Not yet,” Killeen says, swaying slightly as she shakes her head. “I’m not drunk enough yet. Not nearly.”_

 

He had ended up following her back inside, sitting with his untouched drink for hours longer. Her friends, barely in better state than she was, had hauled her arms over their shoulders and dragged her back to the Guard’s barracks.

 

Cullen had followed, at a discreet distance, until they were safely inside, not entirely sure why it mattered to him whether or not a group of off-duty guards got home without being robbed and knifed — except that Killeen Hanmount had stood for hours with nothing but a wooden door between her and a man with a barrel of oil and a lit lantern, and never raised her voice as she cajoled and coaxed and eventually persuaded him to let the Templars in.

 

There’s no danger she can get into in Skyhold, except perhaps falling down a flight of stairs, but still he sits with her as she drinks, as the tavern empties, until finally she pushes her last drink away and, slowly and carefully, stands.

 

She has to cling to him to climb the stairs and getting her up the ladder to his loft takes quite a while and quite some patience. Finally she crawls up the last rung, across the floor to her bedroll, and drops onto it face down, almost immediately beginning to snore.

 

Cullen shucks his cloak and strips his armour, then kneels beside her and, after a moment’s hesitation, unlaces Killeen’s boots and then the points of her jerkin. He’s careful to keep his eyes averted as he loosens enough of her gear to make her at least minimally comfortable, careful to keep his thoughts concentrated entirely on the mechanics of the task.

 

Covers her with a blanket, and after a moment’s thought, finds a basin to set beside her.

 

Thinking _Not exactly according to Lady Trevelyan’s plan._


	18. Beneath The Moon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Inquisitor dances.

“Ser Cullen Stanton Rutherford!” the girl says, giggling. “So distinguished.”

 

“Hardly, miss,” Cullen says. “Do excuse me.”

 

She and her two friends are the most persistent of his pursuers at this ball in Halamshiral, and as he strides away he can hear them following, jewelled shoes tapping on the marble floor. _Maker’s breath!_ He’s refused every invitation to dance, ignoring Josephine’s dark looks and whispered hints about _best behaviour_ , been minimally polite and absolutely nothing more when spoken to, and still the minx has dogged his steps all night.

 

_Surely we can depart soon. The Empress is safe, the Grand Duchess arrested._ He turns a corner, finds himself in a dead end, is forced to turn back. In their wide skirts, the three girls effectively block the corridor — and physically forcing them aside is unlikely to fall within Josephine’s strictures. _And we have a new alliance to cement._

 

He forces himself to smile. “Ladies. I have military business to attend to.”

 

“So dashing!” one says, fluttering her fan. Although they’re almost interchangeable, Cullen is almost sure she’s not the ringleader — that’s the one in blue-on-blue, rather than blue-on-grey.

 

“And urgent, I’m afraid,” he says, trying to edge past them.

 

“Not even time for one little dance?” Blue-on-blue says, leaning toward him and running her fingers up his arm.

 

Cullen finds he has her wrist in a grasp hard enough to make her drop her fan, hears his voice as if it belongs to someone else. “I said _no_.”

 

“Commander!” Josephine’s welcome voice calls from further down the corridor, and he releases the girl’s wrist and takes the opportunity to escape. Josephine frowns when he reaches her. “Are you all right, Commander? You are perspiring.”

 

He wipes at his forehead with his sleeve. “It’s warm in here.”

 

It is not, but she tactfully lets it pass. “I am glad I caught you. Please be careful not to wander off alone.”

 

“I thought we’d secured the grounds.”

 

“We have.”

 

“Then why ever not?”

 

“That young lady in the blue dress is the youngest daughter of Duchess Elouitte de Montan. Who has been enquiring about your lineage.”

 

Cullen frowns. “I don’t _have_ a lineage.”

 

“And that did not seem to bother her in the slightest. Do be on your guard, Commander. Duchess Elouitte will be scrambling to reposition herself after her support for Gaspard. Tying herself more closely with the Inquisition through the marriage of the youngest and least significant of her many daughters to the Inquisition’s Commander would suit her ends perfectly.”

 

“I have no intention of proposing to the girl,” he assures her, but Josephine shakes her head.

 

“This is the Game, Commander. Her friends would stand witness that you had, perhaps even that you had affirmed such a promise with your body. It would put the Inquisition in a very difficult position with the Court, at a delicate time. So please, unless you _wish_ to wed her —”

 

“Maker, _no_ ,” he says violently.

 

“Then do not be alone with her without independent witnesses.”

 

_Easier said than done_ , he thinks later, hurrying down yet one more corridor. He had planned to stick to Josephine’s side like a tick to a Mabari hound, but then he had seen the Inquisitor standing alone on the balcony. The moon was full, the view worthy of even Varric’s most purple prose, and he had remembered Lady Trevelyan’s face that day in the garden. _Go and talk to her,_ he’d suggested to Josephine, and smiled a little to himself when she did not need to be told twice.

 

But that had left him alone, with Duchess Elouitte’s daughter and her allies approaching.

 

And for the life of him, he couldn’t find anyone else.

 

Turning a corner and almost running down a flight of stairs, Cullen thinks that _for the life of him_ might well be right, given the panic he’s struggling to suppress. _Her hands on him, a sweet floral perfume, and he can’t get away from her, can’t —_

 

With a gasp of relief, he sees Killeen.

 

She’s still in armour, although she’s unfastened her gorget, and when he reaches her she smells of lamp-oil and sweat and the ale she’s sipping and he takes her elbow as if it’s an anchor against falling into the Fade. Kill, the equal of any emergency escape — even from Duchess’s daughters in the middle of a ball — leads the way to the stables, and Cullen is beyond relieved as her judgement is proved correct: no Orlesian woman would risk her jewelled slippers in the stable-yard.

 

“I’ve seen you take on a Qunari, two dwarves, and a mule simultaneously,” Kill says as he leans against the wall and waits for his pulse to settle. “And the mule was drunk.”

 

He picks his way through an explanation that doesn’t include his irrational panic, thankful for the lovely mare in the stall nearby who distracts Killeen’s attention. Her own horse is a hard-mouthed, bad tempered roan, and she pretends its because she doesn’t like horses or care what she rides — but Cullen’s seen her with his own Steelheart and knows it’s far from the truth, suspects rather that it’s due to her having sent almost all her pay to her family from the time she first joined the Kirkwall Guard.

 

Her hands are gentle and her voice soft as she croons endearments to the bay. Calm surrounds her like a mage’s spelled shield and Cullen feels the last of the tension ease from his shoulders as he watches her caress the mare’s glossy neck. _There, my lovely, my darling, it’s all right, it’s all right now, my beauty, my lovely, my sweet._

 

The Winter Palace, the Inquisition, Corypheus, are all a thousand miles away. Cullen wants to stand right in that spot forever, with horse manure on his boots and a twist of hay stuck in his sleeve, listening to Kill’s quiet voice, watching the slow movement of her hands, seeing the tenderness in her face. He can almost believe that if he reaches for her, she will come into his arms with a quiet murmur, will run her hands along his back as soothingly as she touches the horse, will whisper the same calming endearments. So strong is the enchantment of the moment that his hand has already begun to lift slowly toward her when she gives the horse one final caress and steps back, breaking the spell.

 

“Come on,” she says. “They should have given up by now, and if they haven’t, I’ll protect you. And the Inquisitor will be wondering where you are.”

 

Reluctantly, he follows her out of their refuge and back to the world. 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Art by the talented Irma Prunesquallor!


	19. In The Dark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which soap and water lead to unexpected consequences.

_You ordered me to get her something_ , Cullen points out to Lady Trevelyan. _This is something she wants. But I need your help._

 

The Inquisitor is delighted, and by the time they reach Skyhold messages have been sent, and returned. It takes a great deal of Cullen’s self-control not to tell Kill the good news. _Her name is Firefly … she’ll be in Skyhold by the end of the week … she’ll be yours._

 

But it will be better as a surprise, and so he says nothing, just turns Steelheart over to her care and follows the Inquisitor to the War Room.

 

For a debriefing, it’s unusually short, but then, they were all present this time, and it’s more an opportunity to congratulate each other on their mutual success. Josephine suggests celebratory drinks. Cullen glances at her fingers twined in the Inquisitor’s, catches Leliana’s eye. They make their excuses almost in chorus.

 

He stops in the Hall for a bite to eat, and Dorian makes a few pointed remarks about Ferelden hygiene. Even discounting Tevinter’s decadent standards, Cullen has to admit the mage has a point: the journey home has combined with the residue of the Halamshiral stables to create a pungent odour of its own. Despite the hour, and the chill, the wash-house is definitely in his immediate future.

 

When he steps into the laundry he hears an almighty crash from the wash-house beyond and, a moment later, _Andraste’s freckled arse-cheeks!_

 

The voice is unmistakable, the expression even more so. _Kill_. “Kill, is that you?”

 

Her voice is muffled. “Yes.”

  
The door to the wash-house is ajar, the room beyond in darkness. “Are you all right?”

 

“I knocked over the bath. I’m fine.”

 

The crash had been substantial. “Are you sure?”

 

“Yes.” And then: “Mother of —!”

 

Another crash, followed by a string of truly impressive obscenity, reassuring him she can’t be seriously hurt.

 

He tries not to laugh at _Maker’s geriatric truss!_ “Because you don’t sound all right.”

 

“The candle blew out.”

 

He lights another and crosses to the wash-house door, then hesitates. There is no reason for him not to walk in on another soldier bathing. It is the normal, casual thing to do. But … He clears his throat. “Shall I bring one in?”

 

At her invitation, he really has no choice.

 

He tries not to look at her as he crosses to light the extinguished candle from his own. He has, after all, seen her body before, in the forced intimacy of shared quarters and communal wash-troughs, seen her naked back with the powerful muscles of her shoulders sliding easily beneath the skin, seen her legs, muscular and flexible as a tumbler’s, seen her small, firm breasts with their nipples the colour of rose hips, even, occasionally the dark triangle of hair between her legs — 

 

But he has never seen her _naked_ , head to foot and he can’t keep his gaze from turning to her. She’s studying a scrape on her elbow, head bowed, her spine making one long line from neck to rump, beads of water shimmering in the candlelight on the smooth curve of her thigh and the flexed muscle of her calf. Then she turns to reach behind her for the sheet, body stretching like an archer’s bow.

 

If their positions were reversed, he would not be able to resist at least a glance at her, but Kill doesn’t look at him at all. Even naked in his presence, she doesn’t see him as man.

 

He gets her a dry sheet, dry clothes, from the laundry and she thanks him casually, stands to dry herself. Cullen knows he should turn away, and utterly fails to do so. She wipes the water from her arms, her neck, then dries her breasts, nipples raised and hard in the chill of the air. He imagines taking the sheet from her hand, doing the same thing, but slowly, letting the rough fabric trail over her sensitive flesh, imagines her gasp with the friction, leaning against him as her knees weaken, her hands running over his hair, his neck, his chest, as he works his way downward … _touch her, kiss her everywhere,_ Lady Trevelyan had said, and Maker, he can imagine spending entire hours learning the small miracles that are Killeen’s ankles, studying the arch of her foot with hands and lips, memorising the way the muscles of her legs fit so sweetly into the curve of her rump …

 

He hears his own breath, harsh and fast, and with an effort of will he turns his back before she can look up and see the state he’s in. She’d run to Crestwood at his stammered confession of his feelings — she’ll run to the Hissing Wastes and beyond if she realises the sight of her body has him straining against his dress uniform trousers. He steals another glance as she dresses, the doublet he’d found in the hamper slipping off one muscular shoulder and revealing the upper swell of her breast, fixes his gaze on the wall again. She is so close to him, a few short steps away, and he can’t help but think of taking those steps, reaching for her, touching her, running his fingers through the heavy fall of hair cut short against her neck, feeling the strong, lean muscles sliding beneath her skin. He has no doubt that in dreams tonight he  _will_ touch her, taste her ... it’s enough, it’s not enough.

 

And she’s talking to him, casually, conversationally, and he needs an excuse to keep his back to her other than _my cock is about to burst my fly._

 

 _The bath._ He sets it upright, and as off-handedly as he can manage pulls his dress-shirt over his head, hangs it from a peg without turning toward her. The water from the pump will be icy — perhaps he can manage to accidentally splash it across his crotch while he fills the bath.

 

But the subterfuge isn’t necessary. Kill says something about the mess-hall, and a moment later, leaves.

 

Cullen closes the wash-house door behind her, braces his back against it to ensure privacy and frees his aching cock from its confinement — thinks of _her_ hand replacing his, thinks of _oh, Cullen, please_ and comes almost immediately, comes so hard his knees give way and he barely feels the impact of the stone flags of the floor.

 

He swore he wouldn't do this again, but Maker, he's only flesh and blood. 


	20. Four In Hand

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which someone is not bluffing

Wicked Grace is Cullen’s game. _Strategy, mathematics, the ability to read people, being able to conceal one’s feeling_ — all strengths of his. Kill might scoff, when the topic arises, but she’ll have to admit she was wrong when he returns to his office with his winnings.

 

Of course, Lady Montilyet is having an extraordinary run of luck, but that’s not unusual in the ebb and flow of a card game. He’ll bide his time, as Varric spins a tale about robbing Duke Prosper’s chateau with the Champion of Kirkwall, eventually reaping the rewards of a disciplined approach to betting based on sound mathematical principles.

 

He’s calculating the chances of drawing another Duke to his hand when Dorian asks casually: “And how is your lovely Lady Lieutenant, Commander?”

 

 _One in eighteen, which means_ — he can’t remember what it means, sees Blackwall’s raise. “As you saw, she’s well.”

 

“Soon to be satisfactorily mounted, if all goes to plan,” Lady Trevelyan says with a wicked smile, and Maker, she can’t have meant it to sound quite like _that_ , can she? But Josephine giggles, and Dorian raises an eyebrow, and Cullen is afraid that yes, she knew exactly how it would sound. He prays his blush isn’t as obvious as it feels.

 

“A new horse,” he says quickly, draws a card and bets three more silver.

 

“Are you _sure_ you want to do that, Curly?” Varric asks as he folds his own hand.

 

He’s not at all sure, has completely lost track of which cards are still in the deck, but he’s _quite_ sure he wants the topic turned. “Yes, of course.”

 

Varric shakes his head. “On your own head be it.”

 

Dorian, damn his eyes, isn’t about to be put off. “You’ll have to get a pony for that urchin of hers as well, then.” He tosses silver coins into the centre of the table. “The three of you could go for rides in the countryside — if this abysmal weather ever improves.”

 

It’s too close to Cullen’s occasional thoughts for comfort. “I don’t think Fel can ride,” he says briskly.

 

“You and your lady Lieutenant could teach her, it’d be a lovely family moment.”

 

“The child does have her _own_ family, Dorian,” Cullen points out, bets again. The mage’s eyebrow goes up and he exchanges a long look with the Iron Bull. Cullen has the uncomfortable feeling he’s betrayed himself somehow, but can’t work out in what way. “Anyway, Kill and I are both too busy.”

 

“You’ll both have to find some time when Firefly arrives,” Lady Trevelyan says. “I’ll be expecting your report on the mare’s suitability, and how Killeen handles her. That _is_ an order, Commander, in case you’re confused.” Her sidelong glance reminds him of her words in the garden — _spend time with her that isn’t working or fighting_.

 

Which in turn reminds him of _touch her, kiss her, everywhere_ , of the idea of Kill giving voice to the moans and cries the Inquisitor had demonstrated, of —

 

“I win again!” Josephine announces with surprise.

 

Cullen eyes the much-reduced pile of coins in front of him. He really should cut his losses at this point, but his breeches are uncomfortably tight and he’d really rather not stand up from the table in front of them all right now.

 

“Deal again,” he says again. “I’ve figured out your tells, Lady Ambassador.”

 

She smiles. “Commander, everyone knows a lady has no tells.”

 

As Lady Trevelyan’s eyebrows go up and she mouths _oh, really_? Cullen says: “Then let’s see if your good fortune lasts one more hand.”

 

It does, but thankfully his erection is not so persistent .

 

For which fact he is doubly grateful when the Inquisitor insists his bet of _all in_ included _everything_ he’d brought to the table, even his clothes. 


	21. As The Candle Burns

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a certain secret is revealed, and another one kept.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This scene takes place during the first paragraphs of the corresponding chapter in Side By Side.

“Ser Bear?” Fel asks, kicking her feet against the legs her stool.

 

Cullen makes a vague noise to let her know he’s listening, most of his mind still occupied with the question of how to deal with those who’d responded to the Gray Warden treaties, now their Grey Warden is apparently _not_.

 

“Kill says that you shouldn’t tell people private things, except sometimes.”

 

_That_ , from Fel, demands his full attention. “More or less true,” he says cautiously.

 

“How do you know which?” she asks earnestly.

 

“It, ah. Depends. What did Kill say, exactly?”

 

“She said I shouldn’t tell her what Mama and Papa said to each other but then she said it was right to tell her Ser Dorian was sleeping on the floor in the corridor.”

 

“Ah,” Cullen says, feeling on slightly firmer ground. “It’s always right to tell if someone is hurt, or sick. Or if you’re hurt, or sick. Or unhappy. But things you might overhear that other people say to each other, those are private.”

 

“Oh.” She kicks her stool in silence for a moment, and Cullen turns back to his papers. “Ser Bear?”

 

“Mmm?”

 

“I’m unhappy.”

 

Very carefully, he sets his pen down, matches her casual tone, praying that this is some childish pique, that her schoolwork bores her or she longs for a new hair-ribbon. “Oh? Why?”

 

“I’ll miss you, when you get married.”

 

Cullen stares at her a second, closes his mouth. It’s not as bad as he’d feared, far more confounding than he’d hoped. “Uh … that’s not something you need to worry about. I’m not, ah. Planning on it.”

 

Fel brightens. “Good. Then you _can_ marry Kill. She said you couldn’t and I thought that meant you were marrying someone else.”

 

“Why, ah …” He picks up his pen, signs something in front of him. He knows he’ll regret asking, can’t help himself. “Why did she say I couldn’t?”

 

“She said there was more to it than being friends,” Fel says, and then with lively curiosity, “ _What_ more?”

 

Yes, he regrets the question, and not just because it prompted another, more awkward one from Fel. He would have liked to believe that Kill might be starting, at least a little, to see him as other than, as more than, a friend. “Adult, um, things. You’ll understand when you’re older.”

 

Fel pouts. “People always say that.”

 

“Because it’s true,” Cullen tells her, and manages to give her a smile. “Be patient, cubling. You’ll be grown up all too soon. Now, can you run an errand for me? It’s a secret.”

 

“From Kill, too?” Fel asks with interest, successfully distracted.

 

“It’s especially a secret from Kill. It’s a surprise for her. A present.”

 

When she’s gone, off to find out from Leliana where the purchased horses from Halamshiral — including Firefly — are in their slow and careful journey to Skyhold, he turns his attention back to the treaties. Their Lady Ambassador believes the goodwill garnered from returning what the Inquisition had gained from them will be worth the military cost — Cullen himself is not so sure.

 

His door bangs open.

 

“It it true about Blackwall?” Killeen demands. 


	22. In The Early Morning Light

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Killeen fails to learn something

Lady Trevelyan takes Cullen’s arm, steers him firmly toward the stairs. “Leave her alone for a while.” He glances back to where Kill is leading Firefly toward the stables and the Inquisitor tightens her grip. “Cullen. Don’t be too obvious.”

 

He allows her to lead him away, not entirely sure she’s correct, not entirely sure that he shouldn’t just turn and go back to the stables and say …

 

 _Say what, exactly?_ No, Lady Trevelyan is right. Telling Kill how he feels toward her right at this moment will smack of an attempt to purchase her affections.

 

But, he thinks as they head toward the promised breakfast, he had been right — it had been far better as a surprise. The utter astonishment on Kill’s face as he told her Firefly was hers, the dawning realisation that had lit her face with happiness … that had been well worth the effort to keep the secret.

 

He’d pretended to be speaking to the horse nosing at his pockets for apples. _There now, beautiful girl, there now, my darling._ Watched them fly around the yard, horse and rider both in graceful, muscular motion, the love and joy and wonder in Killeen’s face not _for_ him, but still, because of him.

 

It’s enough, it’s not enough.

 

Fingers snap in front of his face and he blinks. “I _said_ , jam or honey?” Lady Trevelyan asks, and he realises they are seated at the small table on her balcony, and have been for some minutes.

 

He clears his throat. “Jam, thank you. Forgive me, I was — elsewhere.”

 

“Evidently,” Lady Trevelyan says dryly.

 

“She — Kill was very pleased. Thank you.”

 

“So she should be,” the Inquisitor says, pouring the tea. “That’s a lovely piece of horseflesh, and with luck, she’ll foal well too.” A sly glance. “You could set Steelheart to stud.”

 

He feels himself blush. “I think you’re teasing me.”

 

“I think I am,” she says smugly. “But it was a good idea, the mare. Just don’t rush things. Drop a few hints. Compliment her, that sort of thing.”

 

“I compliment her all the time,” Cullen says. “It doesn’t seem to have … changed her feelings.” _Friends_ , she’d told Fel.

 

“Mmm,” the Inquisitor says. “You’re so good with the merchants, Kill. I’m glad I can leave this in your capable hands, Kill. Nice work with the recruits, Kill. Sound familiar?” Cullen has to admit it does, and Lady Trevelyan rolls her eyes. “You really are hopeless. Tell her she looks pretty! Tell her you like her hairstyle. Tell her what a nice singing voice she has.”

 

“She sounds like a dyspeptic frog when she sings,” Cullen points out. “And she cuts her own hair with a knife.”

 

“Just as well you _haven’t_ gotten yourself in too deep, then,” Lady Trevelyan says. “From the sound of it, you could do much better.”

 

“I hardly think that would be possible for any man, Inquisitor,” he snaps, cool and formal, and she laughs.

 

“ _There_ you go. Remember how _that_ felt when you talk to her. Remember the first thing you noticed about her — the things you think of when you think of her.” At his mounting blush, she adds dryly: “Perhaps not _all_ the things you think of, just yet.”

 

“Still.” Cullen shakes his head, reaches for his tea. “I doubt she’d …”

 

“Perhaps she _is_ my type?” Lady Trevelyan asks. “Did she show _any_ interest after we managed to send you back to your office in all your natural glory?”

 

“That was —?” At her wide-eyed innocence, he can’t help but smile. “I didn’t go back to my office. I hid, until I could get hold of some clothes. And yes, Kill brought them. And no, she didn’t even look at me.”

 

“Oh, well,” the Inquisitor says. “You’re fine then.” He gapes, and she sighs. “Cullen. You’re not exactly _ill favoured_. Andraste’s flaming sword, _I_ looked. The only reason for a woman _not_ to at least steal a peek, apart from being dead, is that she _is_ interested, and trying not to show it.”

 

It’s a new, quite astounding thought, and Cullen isn’t entirely sure he believes it, as much as he’d like to. “How do you — that is. How does one know?”

 

“Well, _I’d_ find excuses to stand a little close to her, to touch her hand, her shoulder — and watch to see if she blushes, if she catches her breath, if her pupils dilate.” Lady Trevelyan grins at him over her teacup. “And compliments. And take her riding. And … try not to tell her she sounds like a diseased amphibian.”

 

That last, Cullen is sure he can manage.

 

The rest … well, he’ll try. 


	23. On The Field

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Cullen is tempted to play dirty

Cullen doesn’t exactly _take_ Kill riding, because she’s not the sort of woman who needs to be _taken_ anywhere, but he finds ways to free them both from the demands of work for an hour or so, suggests exercising the horses. Killeen never needs to be asked twice, she’s more in love with her mare than any of Varric’s heroines with their designated heroes. When Lady Trevelyan returns from Emprise du Lion, Cullen will be able to report that Firefly is all the Imperial Stables had promised, and that Kill, on such a horse, is a fine and able rider.

 

_Fine_ and _able_ are not entirely sufficient words for the tender firmness of her hands on the reins, the easy straightness of her carriage, the certainty of her seat, but he doubts Lady Trevelyan needs to know such details.

 

_Compliment her_ , he remembers, as they ride back to Skyhold one morning, and clears his throat. “You, ah. Look very good. On her.”

 

Is rewarded by the flash of a smile. “It’d be hard not to. She’s perfection.”

 

He’s still trying to get up the courage to say _so is her rider_ when they pass under the gates and the moment is lost in the bustle of the stable-yard.

 

And then vanishes, in the face of the newest reports from Sahrnia. Cullen can see the faces of men he knew as he reads, slowly distorted by red lyrium beneath the skin, mind and memory consumed by it. One or two different decisions in his life — not even by him, by his seniors in the order — and he’d be one of them, losing himself in the song.

 

At moments, he knows the speed and thoroughness of red lyrium’s transformation would have been its own temptation, once, when the cool distance and ultimate amnesia of his daily dose had been a promise not a price.

 

That night _Cullen, you’re dreaming_ wakes him from new and muddled dreams of jagged red crystals and a flask glowing with oblivion. His mouth is dry, his throat aching with a thirst he knows only lyrium can slake.

 

He finds the water jug, drinks cup after cup. Turns to see Killeen propped on one elbow, face in shadow and unreadable, and knows he cannot take the risk the Inquisitor is wrong, not now. Because if Kill leaves him again, leaves him now …

 

And what could he ever say to her? _I love you, and not because I am a shaking wreck of a man afraid to sleep alone. I love you, and not because you clean my vomit while protecting my dignity. I love you, and not because this would be unendurable without you._ How could she believe his affections sincere, believe they would not attach to any woman who helped him as she does?

 

_It will pass. It passed before. But until it does …_

 

And then he realises that _until it does_ may be _too late_.

 

_Stupid questions_ , Fel says Michel de Chevin has been asking her. _Kill’s favourite flower, her favourite food … is she married._

 

Killeen is of the opinion that de Chevin is simply trying to secure himself a posting.

 

Cullen can think of a few suitable options for the good chevalier. _The Hissing Wastes come to mind._ Then he chides himself — can he really fault the man for having impeccable taste?

 

_Yes. Yes, I can._


	24. Between The Sheets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Killeen borrows a cloak.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't forget to give these weekend speedy chapter some love!

Cullen hears the words come out of his mouth as if he’s listening to someone else, some churlish bastard who deserves a thrashing for speaking to Killeen Hanmount in such terms. _Bribing an officer of the Inquisition … meeting someone in the mess-hall is hardly an invitation to dinner … if you have time this afternoon, in between arranging romantic rendezvous …_

 

And then she’s gone, before he can find a way to take the words back, to say _Ser Michel clearly has excellent taste_ , to say _I’ll miss your company, then._

 

She doesn’t return that afternoon, and he can’t blame her. The report comes in on the Shrine of Dumat and he turns to tell her, finds the room empty — realises he’s missed the last serving at mess.

 

Reads the report over and over again, pretending he’s not listening for her steps on the stair, until he has it by heart and the only distraction the words bring is the image of _crystals pressing beneath the skin, eyes blank of thought and memory, power singing through veins and sweeping everything away …_

 

He closes his eyes. _In your heart shall burn an unquenchable flame, all-consuming, and never satisfied, he whispers. From the Fade I crafted you, and to the Fade you shall return each night in dreams, that you may always remember me._

 

_O unrepentant, faithless, treacherous, they who are judged and found wanting shall know forever the loss of the Maker's love._

  
_Only Our Lady shall weep for them._

 

The last watch bell sounds throughout the keep before Killeen opens the door.

 

Her cheeks are flushed, more than the cold night air can account for, her eyes bright. Around her shoulders is a rich damask cloak, the silk figuring catching the candlelight with a dull lustre that echos the glossy sheen of her hair.

 

She owns no such garment. He’d know.

 

And for all the Inquisitor’s confidence, it’s not _Cullen_ who has her heated enough for the colour to still be high in her cheeks.

 

How can she prefer that preening, prancing, peacocking, popinjay  _Orlesian_? How can _Killeen_ , whose chief interest in food has always been its quantity, have her head turned by a few plates of the over-spiced mouthfuls of air that pass for cuisine at the Imperial court? How can the cheap compliments and easy flattery of the Game have any impact on a woman who is, before all else, utterly and absolutely pragmatic?

 

She looks … _happy_.

 

She looks like a woman in love.

 

And Cullen should, he knows, be at least a little glad of it, glad that his most steadfast, loyal friend is happy, that she feels the dizzying, intoxicating tenderness that so stunned him when it struck unexpected in the Chantry at Haven.

 

But he isn’t, he can’t be. He’s not her  _friend_ , for all his promises at Adamant that he could put his feelings behind him.

 

There might some day come a time when he can think of her in another man’s arms without wanting to hit something, preferably the man in question, but he’s not nearly there yet. And the temptation to send Ser Michel de Chevin a great deal further away than even the Hissing Wastes is well nigh irresistible.

 

But that would leave Kill feeling as he himself had, those long weeks of _her_ absence. And he might be a sullen, jealous fool battling the overwhelming urge to find Ser Michel and black both his eyes, but he’ll not contemplate causing Kill misery.

 

To watch, though, as she falls deeper in love, to hear her talk of Ser Michel, to know when she’s with him … that, he cannot do.

 

Samson, and Maddox, provide an excuse. _We leave at dawn._


	25. In His Absence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which, the Shrine of Dumat

It sings.

 

Within seconds of stepping into the Shrine of Dumat, Cullen knows he has made a colossal mistake.

 

Mages can hear the ancient, seductive song of red lyrium, but no-one had suggested Templars could too.

 

Or perhaps, only ex-Templars, Templars without the sweet, soothing music of lyrium in their veins.

 

But he _can_ hear it, scaling up through his blood and bones, dark and deadly and delightful, promising, enticing. Singing.

 

He has forgotten, or grown used to, the aching sense of incompleteness, everything within him reaching, stretching, longing to connect to something larger than himself, something that will make him whole, but it surges over him as he follows the Inquisitor, picking his way through the red lyrium that spreads like fungus over walls and floor. The adrenaline of fighting for his life against Samson’s Red Templar troops helps to push it aside, but even so, by the time they reach the inner sanctum Cullen is half-blind with sweat, his hand shaking so badly it takes several attempts to sheathe his sword.

 

And it’s here as well.

 

It sings.

 

It _sings_.

 

He reaches for the Chant, holy music to set against the singing in his bones, but the words that come to his lips are i _n your heart shall burn an unquenchable flame, all-consuming, and never satisfied_ , and his mind stops there, unable to recall the next line. _All-consuming. Never satisfied. Unquenchable._ But he can quench it, easily, oh so easily. The whispers crawl around inside him as Lady Trevelyan talks to the dying Maddox _. That’s it_ , Cullen wants to say, _that’s all. Let’s go._

 

But they have to search, for any surviving hint on how to combat Samson. It’s why they’re there: it could be their only chance. He blots his face with the corner of his cloak when no-one’s looking, tries not to look at the empty lyrium bottles stacked in the corner, wishes wildly that Killeen was here.

 

 _Cullen, don’t be a bigger fool than you were born,_ she’d say if she knew what he was thinking, that the inevitable consequences of red lyrium seem, at this moment, a small price to pay for an end to the hollow hunger inside him, the urgent craving that tightens his skin and twists his stomach.

 

 _Cullen, don’t be a bigger fool than you were born,_ he whispers to himself. The singing in his head is wrong, is not the clear blue sweetness of the Chantry’s lyrium, is sharp and dark and rich as wine. It will rob him of his mind and memory, and not over years but in days, will rob him of his loyalty and of his love. He clings to the difference, to the memory of how lyrium _should_ sound, humming lightly in his veins and filling him with strength. He clings to the memory of a voice with the flattened vowels of Denerim, the slightest overlay of Kirkwall burr, low and calm and even. _Cullen, don’t be a bigger fool than you were born._

 

When they are finally outside in the clean crisp air, he excuses himself with a remark about the horses, walks into the trees out of sight and falls to his hands and knees, shaking like a man with the ague, retching uncontrollably. The sky is too low above him, the trees press too close, and yet at the same time the cold snow beneath his hands is barely tangible, the sunlight in his eyes dim and dull.

 

Somehow, Cullen gets to his feet, gathers a handful of clean snow to scrub his face clean, rejoins the others. _It passed before. It will pass again._

 

It doesn’t pass.

 

The journey back to Skyhold blurs into one long, unending moment of burning, twisting _need_. People speak to him, and he answers. They make camp, and break camp. Food is served to him, and he looks at it uncomprehendingly. Beneath it all is the song, the memory of the song, the memory of how good it felt when the song was in his blood.

 

The bridge echoes beneath Steelheart’s hooves. They are through the gate, into the stable-yard.

 

He doesn’t plan it, doesn’t even think: holds out his hand to take the Inquisitor’s saddlebags from the stable-hand unloading her hart, slips one hand beneath the flap as he takes them.

 

Closes his fist on the bottle he knows will be there. 


	26. Beneath His Armour

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Cullen and Killeen confront consequences.

He wakes in her arms. 

 

The moonlight shows him the swelling of the wrist that lies across his shoulder, darkening bruises in the exact shape of his fingers. Cullen closes his eyes against the sight, but he can’t shut out the clean, sharp smell of salve. He has a vague recollection of using the whole pot, as if somehow there could be enough liniment in all Thedas to erase the traces of his cruelty and his rage.

 

But he couldn't, can't, will never be able to.  

 

_Give me the lyrium, Cullen, and she can't, won't, refuses to understand that he needs, just once, just this once, a few precious hours of respite from the craving that pulls at every inch of his body.  The bottle in his hand shimmers, promising wholeness, promising peace and strength and the pale blue song caressing his veins, and then she **takes** it from him, tries to **keep** it from him and keep him from it, from the only way to end this unceasing, hollow ache. _

 

_Her voice utterly calm. Cullen, you're hurting me._

 

_His hand on her wrist, knuckles white, bones grinding in his grip._

 

_Once he would have been sure he'd kill a man who used her so._

_Once he would not have thought it possible that he'd become that man himself._

 

_The bottle is in his hand, heavy with the promise of cool blue distance, of the strength to control himself, of sweet wholeness and relief  — and Kill is gathering herself, weight on the balls of her feet, preparing to reach again, to take or try to take his lyrium again. He knows the look in her eyes: she will not back away, not give up._

 

_He cannot trust himself to let her take the bottle from his hand, to not fight, to not hurt her again._

 

_The sound of glass breaking on the rocks below is desolation and relief._

 

And yet, when he had reached for Killeen, she had come willingly into his arms, had held him with all her strength, held him together as all the pieces of himself threatened to fly apart. Holds him still, even in her sleep, cheek resting against the top of his head, breathing slow and even. Lyrium sings to him, but its song is muted, softer than the murmur of her breath, the steady beat of her heart beneath his head. It should be weakness, seeking shelter in a woman's arms, clinging to her and weeping like a child  — but he’s never been so strong as when she holds him.

 

He swears against her skin that he will never let lyrium put her at risk again. Once, the first time he had hurt her — his stomach twists at the fact there is now a _first_ rather than _the only_ time   —  he had been ready to surrender what gains he had made against the chains of his addiction to keep her safe from him.  Now he knows that will not serve.  She will try to stop him, and he might — he likely _will_   — and _that_ , he will never permit himself to risk again. He’d stand between her and a dragon — and this craving, this madness, is no different.

 

And then he laughs at himself, because if they were faced with a dragon, _get behind me_ would be the last thing he’d be likely to say. _You go left, I’ll go right, try for the hamstrings_ is more like it.

 

At his shiver of humour, Killeen stirs slightly, whispers _Cullen, you're dreaming_ , without waking up.

 

 _I’m awake_ , he whispers back, and she sighs and slips down again to deeper sleep.

 

But then, perhaps he is wrong. Perhaps he _is_ dreaming, dreaming the solid comfort of her body, the gentle rise and fall of her breast, the hand that rests against his back — for surely, he doesn’t deserve it to be true.

 

He closes his eyes again. If this is a dream, the Maker has sent it.

 

_O Maker, hear my cry, guide me through the blackest nights … make me to rest in the warmest places._

 

_My Creator, judge me whole._


	27. In His Dreams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which someone gets what they want, and someone else gets what they need.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The original version of this chapter in Side By Side was quite controversial, involving as it did the implication of ambiguous, dubious, or absent, consent. As a result, I edited it. However, due to requests from a number of readers, and due to the fact that this fic has a non-con tag right up front and is rated explicit, I am using the original version for this fiction. For those who did not have the chance to read the original, I am including the relevant section at the beginning of the chapter. As was flagged in Side by Side, Killeen is an unreliable narrator — and of course, so is Cullen, although tbh she’s far more so. (NB: that doesn’t mean the new chapter, below the break, covers only or precisely the same moments as the extract. Like the rest of this story, the chapters line up with, but don’t always directly copy, Side By Side)

Killeen opened her mouth to speak, to wake him, and then she realised that wrapped in his arms, her back firmly against his chest, she had little leverage if he woke, as he still sometimes did — as he might be more likely to do now — fighting the demons in his dreams. She would be horribly vulnerable.

 

She began to slip, quietly and carefully, from his embrace, but his arms tightened around her. His face pressed to the back of her neck, he moaned again, and as his body moulded itself against hers and his hands drifted gently from her waist to other, less neutral points, Killeen realised he was not having a nightmare.

 

_Dream_ , yes. _Nightmare_ , no.

 

_Dreaming, no doubt, of the Inquisitor._

 

She had to wake him, or move away from him, or both, as Cullen’s memory or imagination of the Inquisitor did _something_ to him that, by the evidence, he very much appreciated. Killeen _knew_ she had to — but his lips against her neck, his hands roaming slowly over her, the warmth of his body pressing and rocking against her — it was impossible, it was forbidden, but it felt so good, _Maker_ , it felt good, trails of heat spreading through her body from every point their flesh touched, gathering and pooling in her belly, building and building.

 

_I could just lie here and …_

 

_No._ That would be taking advantage of his trust, his vulnerability, in ways that were beyond unforgivable. She put her hand over his to move it from her breast and his fingers tightened a little beneath hers, his other hand moving lower.

 

She gasped, her thoughts scattering, and Cullen whispered: “Yes, oh _yes_ …” against her hair, moving more urgently now. His touch was gentle but inexorable, and Killeen pressed back against him involuntarily, letting the movement of his hips push her against his hand, over and over, her breath coming faster. She covered her mouth with her hand so as not to let any sound that might wake him escape, because if he woke, he’d stop and if he stopped …

 

_Maker, if he stops, I’ll **die.**_

 

He groaned, and she felt it in her whole body, gave herself over to imagining what it would be like to hear Cullen make that noise awake and aware, what it would be like to feel him do _that_ , and _that_ , and oh Maker especially _that_ , if he knew the effect his touch had on her. “Please,” he murmured, “ _please_ , yes — oh —”

 

Her incoherent thoughts echoed his words. _Please, please, yes … oh. Oh. Oh!_

 

A final hoarse cry and she felt him shudder against her, her own insides spasming and twisting and finally releasing in a long, rolling wave of pleasure that left her bonelessly limp.

 

With a satisfied sigh, Cullen slipped back into the depths of dreamless sleep.

 

Killeen’s heart-rate began to return to normal, and with it, her mind began to work. _This is terrible. I’ve done a terrible thing. He’ll never forgive me for it._

 

_He **should** never forgive me for it._

 

Soundlessly, she slipped from the bed.

 

* * *

 

 

 

Cullen tells his truths to the hollow of Killeen’s shoulder, in the darkest hour before the dawn. _I was eighteen. I’d been with the Templars since thirteen. How could I — could any of us — know? That we were choosing — choosing losing everything, eventually, memory of family, of friends, of who we love? Or else — or else this._

 

She listens, murmurs wordless comfort, fingers running through his hair until he sleeps.

 

Dreams, a confused tangle of _Do you like this? How about this?_ of _singing_ , _dark and jagged_ , of _Maker, no, I won’t_ — wakes afraid that Kill will feel the effect the memory of the demon has on him, is beyond relieved to realise his cock is entirely quiescent.  He would not have believed it possible that he could sleep in the same bed as she without the slightest twitch of arousal, but the nightmare of the Shrine of Dumat has completely unmanned him. Although perhaps that is the wrong way to phrase it, for with her sleeping in his arms he's never felt _more_ a man — as if all the parts of his life, _Templar brother soldier Commander son,_ have finally found a way to fit together, leaving him whole and entire.

 

Still, if the unaccustomed absence of his libido should prove permanent, it will be just as well he had never broached the topic of his feelings with Killeen.

 

“Ser Bear,” Fel says to him one morning while Kill is fetching their breakfast, “you should send Ser de Chien away very soon.”

 

His head aches far too much to correct her pronunciation. “Why is that, cubling?”

 

“He’s been kissing Kill. He shouldn’t be allowed to do that.”

 

_Yes, just as well._ De Chevin can offer her nights filled with better prospects than nightmares.  From what he's heard of Orlesians, _far_ better prospects.  Cullen's only grateful that, however far her relationship with Ser Michel has progressed, Kill still sleeps in his loft, still slips into his bed and takes him in her arms, still whispers comfort against the shadows in the dark.

 

_Singing dark and sharp and rich as wine, promising to fill the emptiness inside, to meet the straining, aching stretch toward something larger, something stronger …_

_Killeen says Cullen, don’t be a bigger fool than you were born._

 

_Says_ Cullen you’re dreaming _in a sleepy murmur as if she herself is talking in her sleep, and he turns his head and sees her, in amidst the nauseating bulges of red lyrium creeping toward them._

_“I don’t want to be here,” he tells her._

_She holds out her hand, says, then let’s go._

_They turn and walk together from the room and instead of stepping into another room of Shrine with its lyrium and madness, they’re walking onto the dock at Honnleath. It’s midsummer. The air is warm and still despite the lateness of the hour, brilliant stars spread out in a blanket across the sky above them._

 

_This is beautiful, Kill says. Where are we?_

 

_“I grew up not far from here,” Cullen tells her. “This place was always quiet.” She turns to look out over the moonlit water and he steps up behind her. “I loved my siblings, but they were … very loud. I would come here to clear my head. Of course, they always found me eventually.”_

_You were happy here._

_“I was.” His arms are around her. He whispers, “I still am,” to the smooth skin beneath her jaw._

 

_And then, because he’s dreaming, and it’s allowed, he presses a kiss to the spot, feels her pulse humming through his lips. And because he’s dreaming, she doesn’t stiffen or pull away, but leans back against him with a sigh of pleasure._

_Emboldened, he runs one hand up her side and cups her breast, feeling her nipple firm as a cherry pit beneath his palm. She sighs again, letting her head fall back, and his other hand ventures lower, tracing the swell of her hip, fingers slipping beneath her waistband. At his touch she presses back against him. For the first time since he walked into the Shrine his cock twitches, stiffens, a thrill of welcome heat tightening his balls._

_And its a dream, so she lifts her hips to increase the contact, rocking back against him with a friction that wipes conscious thought from his head._ Yes _, she whispers sleepily,_ yes, please, Cullen, yes.

_He moans aloud at the pressure of her rump against his cock and —_

 

Wakes in his own bed, one hand cupping Kill’s breast, the other between her legs, unmistakable erection pressing against her.

 

Freezes.

 

Begins to ease his hand away from her —

 

And she lifts her hips, just a little, to keep the contact.

 

He can see the flushed curve of her cheek, can see one eye, squeezed shut too tightly for sleep. When he moves, she moves with him, a gasp slipping from between her parted lips. She is like a windfall peach beneath his fingers, slick and warm and swollen, and when he whispers “Yes?” he hears from beneath the fingers she has pressed over her mouth _yes, oh yes._

 

And oh, Maker, her soft moans make the Inquisitor’s demonstrations seem like pale imitations, the twist of her hips as she presses back against him is nothing he could have imagined. He has long since come to know her reactions as he knows his own, in battle or the training ring: the rasp of breath that betrays fatigue, the tensing muscles that tell him if she'll feint or parry, the slightest shifts in her stance, but this is new to him, is intoxicating, the catch of her breath, the deepening rose flush across her breasts, the flex and give of her body against his.   _How do you know_ , he'd asked the Inquisitor, and can't believe she'd managed not to laugh at him.   _Nothing could be clearer._    

 

He wants to be inside her, wants, _Maker_ , to feel that wet heat not beneath his fingers but around his cock, knows he won’t last much longer against the delicious friction of her body against his, but it doesn’t matter, nothing matters but the sound and sight and scent of her pleasure, pleasure at _his_ touch —

 

Her hand falls from her mouth and clutches the sheet and she whispers  _yes, please, oh, yes_ and his climax takes him by surprise, a sharp spasm that tears a hoarse cry from him, and then Killeen tenses and strains against him and then says  _Oh!_  in the tone of a woman who has just learned something unexpected but delightful and to his astonishment and wonder twists and shudders in his arms, waves of trembling that sweep over and over her for longer than he would have thought possible until finally she goes limp with a sigh so satisfied he feels his whole body loosen.

 

He rests his face against her neck, utterly, mindlessly content, and lets himself drift. 


	28. Beneath His Desk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Varric brings a friend

Killeen is gone when Cullen wakes again.

 

He’d be half-convinced it was a dream, except nothing in his imagination could have conjured those wordless cries, the unexpected movements of her hips, the revelation of her release, so different from the sharp precipice of his own— and when he buries his face in the sheets he can smell them both, sweat and woodsmoke and sex.

 

_Maker, can it be true that Lady Trevelyan was right?_

 

But what of her feelings for Ser Michel de Chevin, the kisses Fel had told him of? Surely if her heart was with another, she would not have been so welcoming, so eager, so quick to respond to him … but then, he knows little of how she conducts her private life, beyond her occasional passing references to casual liaisons of her past. And she had slipped so quietly from the bed he had not even stirred.

 

He rises, washes, dresses. _Proximity, her innate kindness …_ He would like it to have been more, to be more, but cautions himself against assuming too much.

 

Still, when he hears her footsteps on the stairs that lead to his office, his heart pounds, unreasoning happiness like a bubble in his chest. The papers on his desk provide an excuse not to be staring at the door as she enters, but when he hears the latch he can’t help but look up.

 

She has an armload of rolls, a jar of tea, and he is swept with relief. _Of course. She went to get breakfast._ His mouth opens on the words _I missed you_ , he takes the first step of the precisely four that will end with her in his arms —

 

He sees Fel behind her.

 

“Breakfast,” Killeen says. “Fel, pour the tea.” And to him: “I’m glad you slept well.”

 

It’s undoubtedly a euphemism, prompted by the presence of a child, and he feels himself blush. “I, ah — you’d left, when I woke, I —”

 

“You were dead to the world when I woke up, and I was hungry.”

 

Cullen himself is starving, although he would gladly sweep the food and papers from his desk and take her then and there — except for Fel. “And you — ah. Had a good night, yourself?”

 

Utterly confounding him, she says cheerfully: “Slept like a log. Closed my eyes and opened them to morning, don’t think I even rolled over in between. Not that I remember, anyway.”

 

His mouth drops open as she bends to chase an escaped roll. _Is this her way of telling me to forget it ever happened?_ His heart sinks. _She is kind, she could tell I wanted her … gave me that moment, in pity._

 

Before he needs to find something to say to let her know he’s understood, Varric is there, with a female dwarf he introduces as _Bianca Davri._

 

With information about red lyrium.

 Cullen sends Fel away — there are things no child needs to know — and listens until Bianca reaches her conclusion.

 

That lyrium is _alive_. Not just a drug, a poison. An organism, growing like a tapeworm in the brains of Templars, getting fat on memories and emotions and all that makes them human …

 

Killeen reaches for him, face white, and he takes her hand, holds it firmly, tells her with the strength of his grip _Not me. Never me._

 

Varric and Bianca leave, to talk to the Inquisitor.

 

Cullen realises he’s running his thumb over the callus Kill’s sword-hilt has made on the heel of her hand, feeling the contrast between the rough scar and her smooth skin, kneading and pressing slowly, proxy for all the other places he would like to touch her, slowly, like this, gentle and firm  — realises too that he can hear her breathing, fast and unsteady, risks a glance at her and sees her eyes dark and heavy lidded, lips parted, cheeks flushed. _Maker, but she's beautiful._

 

And whatever reason she had had for her abrupt departure that morning, for her cryptic comments, it had nothing to do with not _wanting_ him. She could easily pull her hand from his but instead her fingers tighten, eyes closing completely, a low murmur of pleasure escaping her lips.

 

Then she clears her throat and he hears Fel’s running footsteps on the walkway, hastily lets go.

 

He finds another errand for the child, starts to say _Kill, about this morning …_

 

Killeen turns the subject before he can, and while he is occupied extracting the folded parchment beneath one leg of his desk, she flees.

 

Cullen is utterly, unutterably confused — a state of affairs hardly improved when he unfolds the parchment to read _Hope you found this for the right reasons_ in bright red ink, followed by a _J_ inside a _Q._


	29. Between The Covers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Varric and Cassandra discuss literature.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With thanks to Ballades for inspiring Sera. And for those of you thinking, wait, weren’t Kill and Fel in the armoury, why didn’t Cullen see them/pass them, it’s because there’s more than one route between the two, and Kill had left the armoury and was heading to Cullen’s office via a different route to the one he used.

“Commander.” Cassandra stands in the doorway, arms folded, and regards Cullen sternly. “We must talk.”

 

He wrenches his thoughts, with difficulty, from the questions that have been rotating through his mind all morning as he waits for Kill to return.  _Was it pity? Have I read too much into it? Could she really feel as I do? Could she be the sort of woman to entertain thoughts of two men at once?_  “Of course,” he says, and waits.

 

“Not here,” Cassandra says firmly, and without waiting for his response, turns on her heel and stalks out.

 

He follows, expecting her to lead the way to the War Room and some fresh emergency, pulse picking up as the adrenaline begins to course through his veins, but she turns left instead, to the armoury and the room above she has taken as her own. As he passes through the armoury Cullen glances around for Kill, but she’s not there — although the impeccable order of the weapons and the neat stack of gear to be repaired speaks of her recent presence.

 

When he reaches the top of the stairs he sees the Inquisitor, and Varric Tethras — but not the Lady Ambassador, or Leliana.  _Something to do with Varric’s friend, then, with her information about red lyrium._ There are mugs and a jar of ale on the table, which suggests no urgent action. His pulse slows.

 

“Cullen,” Lady Trevelyan says, “we need to talk.”

 

He nods, takes a seat across from her. “About this morning.”

 

A flicker of relief in her eyes. “Yes.”

 

“If Bianca’s information is good —”

 

Varric interrupts him. “Not  _that_ part of this morning, Curly.”

 

“What is the relationship between you and Lieutenant Killeen Hanmount?” Cassandra asks bluntly from where she leans against the wall.

 

Cullen feels the blood drain from his face. Was  _that_ where Killeen had gone with such haste? To tell his superiors that he had abused his position? Sweet Maker, had he been so wrong? Had she experienced their encounter as  _assault_?

 

A mug is banged down in front of him. “Drink up, Curly,” Varric says. “I think you’re going to want to.”

 

“I — of course, I’ll resign,” Cullen says. “But believe me, I had no idea she was … anything but willing.” And cringes, to hear it, words he’s heard from many men before.  _She wanted it, she led me on … she changed her mind afterwards, I thought she was saying yes …_ He lifts the mug, takes a long swallow of ale to force back the bile threatening to surge up his throat.

 

“ _Maker_ , Cullen, that’s not what we mean!” Lady Trevelyan says quickly. “What happened?”

 

“I — we — she made a complaint to you?”

 

“I haven’t spoken to her, at all. Did — do you think she had reason to?”

 

Cullen shakes his head, dizzy with relief. “No. She — no. It, ah …” His mouth is dry, and he sips at his ale. “There, ah. _Events_. Which for a moment I thought I had misinterpreted.”

 

“Cullen,” the Inquisitor says with a smile, “are you telling me you finally made a move?”

 

Maker, he can’t possibly get any more embarrassed.

 

And then a loud and obnoxious kissing sound comes from the rafters, and Sera giggles from above them: “Made more than a move from the look of that blush!”

 

 _Yes. Yes, I can,_ Cullen realises.

 

"You're not helping, Buttercup," Varric says.

 

Sera lets herself fall to hang upside down from her knees. "Who said I was trying? You really are a tit, Commander, you know that? All high and mighty and ordering this and ordering that. Never think about the people who run around making sure those orders happen, do you? Not until you get the urge to stick your cock in one and then it's all true love and swooning, and by the way don't forget my laundry. _Tit._ Just roger her senseless already, and thank her for picking up your shit. Thank her properly." She makes a V with two fingers, frames her mouth, waggles her tongue suggestively.

 

At Cullen's look of incomprehension, and then sudden, fiery blush, she laughs so hard she falls off the beam. "No wonder she's not keen on an encore! I bet you think a bit of in-and-out and a squeeze to the tits is all a girl wants."

 

"Actually," Cullen hears himself say stiffly, "she was quite satisfied."

 

"So," Lady Trevelyan says slyly, "Did you  _know_?"

 

Cullen is, he's sure, scarlet, tries to hide his embarrassment behind his mug of ale. "I, that is — yes.  But it makes no difference. She —”

 

“Curly, you need some help,” Varric says. “Not that her Inquisitorialness hasn’t done her best, but it’s time to call in a professional.”

 

“I hardly think this is an appropriate matter for the Inquisition’s attention,” Cullen says stiffly, and starts to stand.

 

Lady Trevelyan sighs. “Cullen. We’re your  _friends_.”

 

“Andraste’s tits, man,” Varric says, firm hand on his shoulder pushing him back into his seat. “As funny as it’s been to watch you two, it’s just getting painful now.”

 

“I concur,” Cassandra says. “Something must be done.”

 

“I —” He takes a drink, finds himself saying: “I thought she … but now she acts as if nothing happened. As if —” He shakes his head. “Perhaps she took pity on me.”

 

"Kill doesn't really strike me as a woman that would work on, frankly," Lady Trevelyan says. “More like a woman who’d refer you to your own right hand.”

 

Cullen smiles. _That’s exactly what she’d say._ “Then I don’t know why she’s — acting as she is.”

 

“We should simply ask her,” Cassandra proposes, and when both Varric and Cullen splutter protests: “The use of emissaries is a fine tradition with a long history. Both parties can express their feelings while maintaining their dignity. It is most romantic.”

 

“And I suppose  _you’d_  be the emissary?” Varric asks, refilling everyone’s mugs from the jug on the table. Cassandra nods, and he laughs. “Almost ready to agree, just to see it. Almost.” He mimics Cassandra’s accent, badly. “Lieutenant, I am here to enquire as to the nature of your intentions.”

 

Cassandra folds her arms, glares at him. “I would not say it like that! I would be subtle.” Lady Trevelyan whoops with laughter. “I would! Perhaps some poetry.”

 

Cullen nearly chokes on his ale. “I, ah. Don’t think poetry is.  _Quite_ Kill’s taste.”

 

“We could talk to her more casually,” Lady Trevelyan says thoughtfully. “Just sort of ask a few leading questions.”

 

Killeen’s reaction to the Inquisitor and two of her closest companions  _casually_ asking  _leading questions_  has all the hallmarks of imminent disaster. And, he realises, he is in possession of information they lack. “There's some sort of understanding between her and Ser Michel de Chien.  _Chevin_."

 

"I will deal with Ser Michel," Cassandra says firmly.

 

"Now look." Cullen waves his finger at her sternly. "Kill has a right. And, besides, if anyone is going to deal with de Chien, it's me."

 

"Relax, Curly," Varric says. "The Seeker's not going to cut his throat and bury him in a shallow grave. _Is she_."

 

"Certainly not," Cassandra is the picture of offence. "I will simply make him aware ... what exactly am I going to be making him aware of?"

 

“No,” Cullen says firmly.

 

“Or,” Sera suggests, “you could get yourself a nice bird, one of those ones in the tavern who are all lonely now Dorian’s got the Bull tied up —”

 

“Other way around,” Cullen and Cassandra say in almost perfect unison.

 

“Ri-ight.” Sera wrinkles her nose. “I was being meta-whassit, so ta for that. _Anyway_. Jealousy! You’ll know soon enough how she feels when she finds you balls-deep in another woman on your desk.”

 

"Do not be such a child, Sera," Cassandra says. "Varric, you are gifted in choosing the right words. Could you not write a letter to the Lieutenant, purporting to come from the Commander, declaring his feelings?"

 

"Wait, wait," Lady Trevelyan says. "I've got it! Not a letter, Varric ... a book."

 

Cassandra’s voice is dry. "Given how slowly Varric writes, that would leave this situation unresolved for months." 

 

"Oh, he doesn't need to  _write_ it." The Inquisitor grins. "No, this is what you do ..."

 

 _I am,_ Cullen thinks, _entirely superfluous to this discussion._ The four of them are going to do whatever it is they decide is in his best interest, and Maker have mercy on him should he try to stop them.

 

He should resent it, this high-handed interference into his personal life, but finds he doesn’t. Perhaps its the ale, which he's never had a head for, or perhaps Sera's contribution has finally overloaded his ability to be embarrassed, but he finds himself warmed by their determination to see him happy. 

 

 _We're your_   _ **friends**_ , Lady Trevelyan had said, and Cullen realises it's true.  


	30. In The Evening

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which certain questions are answered.

They are leaving the War Room when Cassandra says: "Commander, a word."

 

Cullen's somewhat soberer now than he was at lunch, and he follows Cassandra to the garden with some trepidation. 

 

"It is pleasant here, even on a night like this," Cassandra says, looking up at the scudding clouds that tell of the sharp, keen wind the garden walls cut off. "You should make a note. Moonlit walks are _most_ romantic."

 

"Is that, uh. It?" 

 

"No.” She turns to face him. “Varric and I spoke to the Lieutenant this afternoon. She would be receptive to your suit."

 

She says it with such absolute certainty Cullen can only gape at her. "Are you ..." 

  
“I am telling you, Commander,” Cassandra says, “it is quite clear. I am very good at reading people.”

 

Cullen snorts. “You’re terrible at reading people.”

 

“ _Varric_ is very good at reading people,” Cassandra counters, “and he concurs. We also consulted Dorian Pavus, and he has independently arrived at the same conclusion. ” 

 

"Dorian?" 

 

"The Lieutenant told him some time ago that she had a romantic attraction to a man who did not reciprocate her feelings.  He believes that man to be you. Or, in his words, _that decorative idiot who was apparently behind the door the day the Maker allocated charm and social graces_."

 

"Thank you very much," Cullen muttered. "Who else, exactly, is in on this conspiracy?"

 

"The Inquisitor, myself, Varric, Cole of course, Dorian. The Bull and Sera have bet against you taking the necessary action before the end of the year. Blackwall refused to participate, and naturally Leliana is considered to have an unfair advantage."

 

"Maker's breath! So I'm the laughing stock of everyone I know?"

 

"The roads are long," Cassandra says impassively. "We spend a great deal of time travelling from one place to another, or else waiting here in Skyhold for the Inquisitor to return. Conversation passes the time."

 

"There must be better things for you to talk about than  _me_."

 

"Of course," Cassandra says. "Sera's infatuation with the arcanist Dagna, Dorian's rather peculiar relationship with the Iron Bull ... the Inquisitor and Josephine,  Believe me, Commander, speculation about your romantic entanglements is far down the list."

 

The idea that, en route to battle demons and dragons, the Inquisitor would occupy her mind with trivial gossip, is an absurd one, and yet Cassandra's voice has the ring of truth. 

 

He remembers a cloudy afternoon in the garden.  _There's nothing **mere** about personal matters_. Finds himself smiling. "I suppose Lady Trevelyan has taken an active interest in promoting some of those alliances you mentioned."

 

"She is an inveterate matchmaker," Cassandra says.

 

“How have _you_ escaped?”

 

“She believes I am engaged in a long epistolic courtship with a man in Nevarra. I routinely discuss the contents of his letters with her. She is not aware that I write both sides of the correspondence.” Her eyes narrow. “And if you tell her so, I will cut out your tongue.” 

  
“For someone who talks so much about romance, I’m surprised you don’t want to find love.”

 

“I found love,” Cassandra says flatly. “He died at the Conclave.”

 

“I —” _never knew that_. Cullen is suddenly, shamefully aware that he has scarcely had a conversation with Cassandra that was not either Inquisition business, or centring on lyrium and his struggles with it. She has been an unfailing support to him, as much as he has allowed her to be, her faith in him constant even when his own confidence had wavered, her watch over him freeing him from the anxiety that he would, unaware, descend into madness and do some irreparable damage to their cause. And in return … “Forgive me.”

 

Perhaps she understands. “Go and talk to your Lieutenant, Commander. Make your feelings known to her. Love is precious. Do not waste a moment of it.”


	31. In The Cold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Cullen reflects.

_Well_ , Cullen thinks wryly as he follows the messenger to the War Room, _that didn’t go quite according to plan._

 

He had not expected, when he opened the door to his office, to find Killeen giggling to herself.

  
He’d asked what was funny, expecting a joke about nugs — Kill has an inexhaustible fund of jokes about nugs.

 

Her voice, when she answered, had been slightly slurred. Perhaps unremarkable for the hour, except this is _Kill_ , who can consume remarkable amounts of alcohol without showing any ill-effect, who drinks beyond her capacity only when something has truly, badly, upset her. “Nothing. Just – something funny that happened, earlier. I got proposed to.”

 

Not _I got engaged._ Or _I’m going to get married_. He’d noted that, noted too that most women didn’t take a proposal of marriage as a cue to drink alone.

 

“It was a li’l – a little hard to tell,” she’d said. “Exactly. But telling a woman you want her to breed you strong sons sounds like it ought to be a proposal.” _De Chevin_. The man deserved a thrashing for insulting her so. “There was more. Leading armies and so on. It wasn’t just the broodmare stuff.”

 

“Someone should teach that chevalier some Ferelden manners,” Cullen had told her. _Such as me. At length._

 

And that had been when she had waved a hand, almost fallen over, and told him his wine was terrible.

 

It hadn’t been wine: it had been the Qunari spirit the Bull keeps telling him to try, which he keeps around as a cleaning solvent. 

 

He’d held her shoulders as she rid herself of the contents of her stomach over the edge of the battlements, been relieved when afterwards, she could stand unaided.

 

She’d thanked him, apologised, and Cullen had thought of what Sera had said. How many times had he thanked Killeen, apologised to _her_ , when she’d cleaned up his vomit, given him water to rinse his mouth?

 

 _Not enough, if at all_. In fact, they never spoke of it.

 

He’d made some remark to let her know he knew they were far from even, suggested they walk to clear her head.

 

Even now he cringes to remember _It’s a nice night for, ah, an evening …_

 

_Behind the door the day the Maker allocated charm and social graces is absolutely right._

 

And Killeen’s level stare. “Cullen, are you absolutely sure that I’m the one who’s drunk?”

 

It might have been a nice night to be safe indoors with a roaring fire. It was not, in fact, a nice night for anything outdoors.

 

And no, he hadn’t been entirely sure she was the only one of them intoxicated, especially once he had used the chill wind as an excuse to share his cloak with her, his arm around her shoulder, her body dizzyingly close to his.

 

He’d been able to hear her breath catch as his hand moved on her shoulder.

 

And he’d been sure.

 

Had drawn her closer to him. “I’m glad you’re not going to marry Michel de Chevin.”

 

Kill’s voice had been soft and husky. “I wouldn’t leave you until all this is over.”

 

She was just a little shorter than he was, shadows sliding over her face as the clouds slipped over the face of the moon. The moonlight had stripped her face of colour, making it impossible for him to tell if a flush darkened her cheeks, making her a stranger to him.

 

Except she had held him in her arms in the darkest hours of the night, and no trick of the light could make them strangers to each other.

 

And the words had been there, for once. “You deserve someone who thinks you’d give meaning to all his days and nights. Someone who’d think about you every moment he was away from you and look at you every moment you were together. Someone who would compare every woman he met to you, and find them lacking.”

 

“I have … one of those utterly laughable, one-sided crushes,” Kill had said, and at the tremble in her voice Cullen had not been able to keep himself from drawing her closer to him. Dorian had been right, although how, after all that had passed between them, Kill could have thought her feelings unreciprocated was a mystery.

 

A mystery he had been happy to solve at a later time. Not then, with his hands on her waist, her breath brushing against his cheek. Her skin had been warm beneath his lips, vivid contrast to the cold night air, as he kissed her temple, her cheek. “It seems too much to ask. But I want —”

 

He had been a breath away from taking her in his arms and kissing her until they were both unable to stand —

 

_Void take that messenger._

 

He pushes open the door to the War Room with enough force to slam it against the wall, catches it on the rebound.

 

_This had better be an absolute emergency._

 

It was. 


	32. In The Wilds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which, Corypheus.

They win the battle, but the losses are heavy.

 

Kill comes through unharmed. It doesn’t occur to Cullen, at any point during the day that she might not, that he might not. She’s _Kill_ , indomitable, and he loves her. He almost kissed her, he's _going_ to kiss her and the inevitability of that, surely, protects them both.

 

There is a future in which he kisses her, and it is as certain as the sun rising each day.

 

The Elder One’s resurrection shakes all their faiths in sunrises, and futures.

 

Cullen's future will include kissing Killeen, but there might be very little future for either of them after that.

 

Kill is hollow-eyed and silent on the ride back to Skyhold, for the first time he can remember unable to raise even a flicker of humour.

 

Still, it doesn't occur to him that she might be hurt, because she's _Kill_ , because surely after he has finally learned she has come to care for him, the Maker would not let harm come to her, not now. Not today.

 

There seems, however, no harm in reminding Him.

 

Cullen heads not to the War Room but to the Chapel. _Maker, my enemies are abundant — many are those who rise up against me, but my faith sustains me; I shall not fear the legion, should they set themselves against me. Maker, though the darkness comes upon me, I shall embrace the light. I shall weather the storm. I shall endure._

_What you have created, no one can tear asunder._

 

He stares at the flickering candle. _No one. Not even Corypheus._

He is still working his way through the Canticle of Trials when the Inquisitor interrupts him.

 

“A prayer for you?” she asks.

 

“For those we have lost,” he tells her. “And those I am afraid to lose.”

 

“You’re afraid?” She sounds almost surprised, as if the idea of fearing failure has not occurred to her, even now. Reassures him that she’s ready, that they’re ready.

 

Tells him that Killeen is waiting for him in the garden.

 

Even in the face of the worst they could fear, Kill still keeps her shoulder turned to the Maker. _Perhaps_ , Cullen thinks, _if I ask her — ask her to join me, to pray **with** me._

 

But she is asleep, curled on the stone bench.

 

Not until he tries to wake her does he understand just how fragile, and foolish, his conviction of their future had been.


	33. In The Garden

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which no-one says goodbye.

Killeen rouses enough to tell Cullen to _go fuck a nug_ , then gags and abruptly vomits on his breeches, sinking back into unconsciousness immediately. 

 

He is calm, because panic will not help. "Kill, open your eyes. Look at me, Kill." He finds blood in her hair, turns to look for someone to send for a healer, and remembers the Inquisitor, still in the chapel.

 

She takes one look at his face and comes at once.

 

Lady Trevelyan has learned a great deal from Lady Vivienne, and Cullen is profoundly grateful for it as she touches Killeen’s face, a soft green glow spreading from her fingers. “No breaks to the skull. She took quite a blow, though.” Releases her head back to Cullen’s cradling hands. “She’ll be all right, now. Let her sleep.”

 

So he does, her head resting on his leg, his cloak spread over her. The others gather in the War Room, but with what of their army remains still trailing back from the Arbor Wilds, there’s little he can contribute to the discussion.

 

It is Leliana who comes to tell him that there is, once again, hope, that the Inquisitor and Morrigan have unlocked the secret Corypheus sought at the Well of Sorrows.

 

That the Elder One can, after all, be killed.

 

He closes his eyes a moment in the pre-dawn hush, gives silent thanks that the Maker has heard, has answered his prayers.

 

Opens them at Leliana’s soft voice: “And the stars stood still, the winds did quiet, and all the animals of earth and air held their breath. And all was silent in prayer and thanks.”

 

Their eyes meet, for once not Commander and Spymaster, but simply a man and a woman who have walked a long, hard road together, who have crested the last hill and seen before them the peaceful valley of their destination.

 

A smile touches Leliana’s lips. “You make quite the pretty picture, Commander. If Val Royeaux could see you now, a hundred hearts would break.”

 

“Do you miss it?” he asks. Leliana is still a young woman, and she had been clearly in her element at the Winter Palace, unlike Cullen himself. _What will **she** do, when all this is over?_

 

The ghost of a laugh from Lady Nightingale. “Breaking hearts?”

 

“Val Royeaux,” he says, and then stumbles on the realisation he has, perhaps, inadvertently insulted her. “I – that is, I’m sure you still ... if you want, ah. To.”

 

Leliana shakes her head, but she’s smiling. “Oh, Commander, what are we to do with you? Hush now. Just look pretty.”

 

Cullen looks down at Killeen as Leliana leaves. She is still sleeping, but her breathing is easy and slow, not the stertorous rasp that had first told him something was wrong. Cullen dozes a little himself, hand resting on Kill’s shoulder to alert him if she stirs.

 

Is woken not by Kill but by a small, piping voice. “Ser Bear?”

 

He opens his eyes to the pre-dawn light. “Hello, cubling.”

 

“Is Kill all right?”

 

He glances down, reassuring himself. “Yes. She’s just resting.”

 

Fel stands on one leg, regards him intently. “Are you going to kiss her when she wakes up?”

 

“That depends on if she wants me to,” he says gravely.

 

“Oh.” She hops to the other leg. “Do you think it’s likely?”

 

“And how is it _your_ business?” he asks, softening it with a smile. “Hasn’t Kill talked to you about privacy?”

 

“Yes. But. If you tell me now I can still get a bet down.”

 

He’s not sure he’s heard correctly. “A bet?”

 

She nods. “So are you going to? You should.  Everyone says so.” 

 

“Everyone?” Cullen asks, and Fel nods again.

 

“Ser Dorian also said that if you took much longer about it, he’d start to think _he_ had a chance with you.”

 

“Perhaps Ser Dorian should mind his own business,” Cullen tells her.

 

Kill stirs, lifts herself on her elbow, complains that he hadn’t woken her, complains at the foul taste in her mouth, and Cullen can’t keep the smile from his face.  Suggests breakfast, helps her stand.

 

Takes her two hands in his and tells her that there’s hope.

 

Killeen has always had a firm grasp of essentials and today is no different. “If the Inquisitor is the one who can kill Corypheus ,” she says, “we’d better make damn sure Haven doesn’t happen again. No more running off to sacrifice herself for the rest of us. We’d better make damn sure we get her in front of him and keep whatever forces Corypheus still has off her back.”

 

The sun has risen far enough for its soft beams to have reached the portico where they stand.  The rays are too weak to gild her, but shed an opalescent sheen over her hair, her face, her hands.  She looks exhausted, and Cullen knows he must be in little better shape himself.

 

And this, perhaps, is not the moment to speak – but none of them, he knows now, can count on there being a better.

 

He starts, carefully, to approach what he most wants to say.  “When this war started, I — well, I hadn’t considered much beyond our survival. But things are different now.  I find myself wondering  what will happen after.  When this is over, I won’t want to move on.” 

 

She hesitates, then nods. “I understand.” 

 

“Do you?” Cullen asks softly. “Because —”

 

The sky turns green.

 

The moment is gone.


	34. As Night Falls.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which, doom upon all the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter overlaps both In the Garden, As Night Falls and Twilight in "Side By Side"

Cullen finds Killeen at the gates, Firefly saddled and ready, the mare's nostrils flaring with eagerness at the prospect of a run. Her squad are still finishing the last of their preparations, and there are few of them left hale and hearty after the Arbor Wilds, so few.  _Too few_.

 

 _I’ll take them_ , he wants to say.  _You stay here, organise the defences. Take charge of the evacuation, if one’s needed._

 

Except her words to him, in the snow after Haven, had been right.  _Armies need someone to follow_. Shorn of her jokes about his height and his _extremely visible hair,_ it was still the truth – he was the best person to rally what would be left of the Inquisition should the Herald fall.

 

And there is no-one he’d trust more than Kill to accomplish the task ahead.

 

“Kill,” he says softly.   “It’s Haven. There’s no way the rest of the army can —”

 

 “Yeah.” It’s in her face, everything his words mean, in her face and in her flat acknowledgement.

 

She’d challenged him, once, to say he’d put her life ahead of the Inquisition.

 

He wouldn’t, won’t. _Can’t_. Every one of them, except Lady Trevelyan, is expendable. Every one of the soldiers, the workers, the pilgrims and the refugees who have died since the Breach opened: every one of them loved, and was loved; every one of them had wished as fervently for one more dawn, one more hour, one more  _moment_ as Cullen wishes now. It had not been enough to save _them_ : it will not be enough to save her. 

 

“Kill. She has to —”

 

She turns from him, leans her head against Firefly’s neck.  “I’ll keep them off her. The rest will have to be up to her.”

 

And he can’t even ask her to  _be careful_ , to  _come back_  to him.  He can’t  _not_ – his mouth opens on the words.  “Kill —”

 

She silences him. “No.” And he knows that tone: Killeen Hanmount going into a tough fight with long odds, shutting out all distractions, drawing herself inward to the cool, clear core of discipline on which her life will depend.

 

The only help he can give her to come back to him in safety is to keep from asking her to do just that.

 

Cullen does the only thing he can: kneels beside her mare, links his hands. He feels the sole of her boot against his palms, takes her weight and, like a servant or a squire, lifts her to Firefly’s back.

 

 He watches until she is out of sight, but he knows already she will not look back.

 

There are defences to organise; there is an evacuation to plan, should those defences fail. He brings his complete attention to each and every task involved, even the ones so trivial Fel could manage them. It is all there is for him to do, while others fight.

 

And then they are done, and there is nothing for him to do but pray.

 

He realises, when he reaches the walkway along the wall above the garden, that he is not the only one in Skyhold to have had the thought. _Far from it._ People have overflowed the chapel, fill the porticoes, the garden, are backed up the stairs. Many hold candles, against the unnatural green-riven night above.

 

 _Almost everyone must be here – all those who were not with the army in the Arbor Wilds_. Those who had been on the sick list when the army set out, those who were here to serve in other ways than with a sword: the wounded, the halt, the lame, the blacksmiths and the quartermasters, the stable-hands, kitchen-hands, waggoners, scullery maids,  the very old, the very young.

 

There is no way for him to make his way through that throng to the chapel, not without claiming precedence and forcing his way through the crowd. And that, he cannot do, cannot insist he has a greater right to prayer than any of those before him.  _All men are the Work of our Maker’s Hands, from the lowest slaves to the highest kings._

 

He bows his head, clasps his hands.  _Blessed are they who stand before the corrupt and the wicked and do not falter …_

 

The Chant is not enough.

 

 _Speak only the Word, sing only the Chant …_ yet he finds himself grasping for different words, out of an inchoate conviction that the Maker  _must_ , if only Cullen can make Him understand,  _must_ realise …

 

_Oh my Maker, You loved, as I love. Do not take this Your blessing from me. I beg You, watch over her. I know she is not the most faithful of Your children. But I am, oh my Creator, my faith has been strong despite how I have been tested. Let her live, let her come back to me._

_Blessed Andraste, intercede for her. She is a woman, as You were, who is loved, as You were._

_Oh my Creator, if You would judge me whole – she is a part of me. If You are judging, judge both of us, and let any deserved wroth fall on me._

_I know all of Your creation is precious to You, oh my Maker, but she —_

 

_Her smile is always slightly crooked because of the scar she took saving my life. When she arms, she always shrugs her shoulders twice to be sure her cuirass is settled as she wants it. She finds a joke to crack in the face of the open Void. She will risk her life for people she’s never met, will never meet. In certain lights, her eyes are the exact colour of the twilight sky. She never drinks a mug of tea without inhaling the steam first. She always climbs a staircase starting with her right foot. She knows more jokes about nugs than there **are** nugs, I think._

 

_She is brave and strong and fearless and kind and calm at the heart of the worst of storms, and I love her, I love her._

 

_If she falls, oh my Maker, gather her to Your side, let her walk always in Your light._

 

_But please, by Your mercy, bear her up. Do not let her fall._

 

He has no candle to light. And how shall the Maker hear him without it?

 

It is, he knows, nonsense.  Many are the prayers offered in darkness – by soliders lying ready for pre-dawn battles, by shepherds seeking lambs lost in sleet and storm. They are, Cullen is sure, as likely to be answered, or not, as any other.

 

And yet he cannot shake the chill that creeps over him, the conviction that Kill will live, if he can light a candle for her, that she will not, if he does not.

 

Beneath him, there is a small disturbance in the crowd. Candle-flames flicker, a ripple moving from the chapel entrance to the stairs. He catches sight of a small blond head, wriggling through the crowd, and a moment later Fel is beside him.

 

She puts her hand in his, and on impulse he picks her up. Her small, wiry body is warm and fragile in his arms. “Hello, Ser Bear. Did you come to light a candle?”

 

He makes light of it. “Me, and everyone else, it seems, cubling. I don’t think I could get through.”

 

"For Kill?” Fel asks, and when he nods: “Don't worry, Ser Bear, I lit one already for her."

 

“I’m sure she’d be glad to know,” he tells her.

 

“No, she wouldn’t,” Fel says matter-of-factly. “She says it's rubbish to think the Maker gives a fig for us.”

 

He’s reasonably certain that the word Killeen would use, saving Fel's receptive ears, would not be 'fig’.  _Perhaps_ , Cullen thinks, _the plan of making Kill responsible for the child’s religious education was not as good an idea as I thought_. “But you lit one anyway?”

 

Fell shrugs. “It  _could_ work. And it won’t hurt.” She is silent a moment. “I hope it works. Or that Kill doesn’t need it to. I hope she kicks the monsters in their soft bits and comes back soon.”

 

His arms tighten a little about her. “So do I, cubling,” he says softly, watching the lake of lights below them. “So do I.”


	35. Twilight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a cliffhanger is resolved.

They ride in under the gate, the Inquisitor, her companions, what is left of Harding’s scouts. What is left of Killeen’s squad.

 

Cullen’s eyes seek a bay mare, seek Firefly’s proud, neat head and her half-dancing gait. Seek the woman who rides her.

 

He can’t see her. The Inquisitor is dismounting from her hart to tumultuous cheers, starting up the stairs to where her advisers wait. The last of the riders trailing are through the gate — the very last, now, and still Kill has not …

 

 _Will not_ , he realises. The landing shifts beneath his feet, the walls sliding slowly around him.

 

The Inquisitor runs up the last steps toward him, throws her arms around him before he falls. “She’s alive. Cullen, can you hear me? She’s _alive_.”

 

_Following, with the wounded._

 

He can breathe. He can let Lady Trevelyan go and stand unaided.  _She’s alive._

 

And then they bring the wounded in, and Killeen is not among the injured still able to walk or ride, she is limp and still in a wagon, Lady Vivienne sitting beside her in a litter of empty lyrium bottles. The mage’s face is grey with weariness beneath the rich chocolate colour of her skin, and Kill — Kill is strangely flat and small under the blanket that covers her. Crushed and burned, the Inquisitor explains, by the dragon’s dying spasms.

 

He thinks it can’t be as bad as that sounds, and then they lift her to carry her into the infirmary and the noises she makes, a thin keening whimper of pain beyond enduring — he sees what is left of her blackened, twisted armour — he cannot watch, cannot listen, cannot leave.

 

“Cullen.” Lady Trevelyan touches his shoulder, lays her hand against his cheek, turning his head away from Killeen, forcing him to look at her. “It’s all right. Listen to me. She’ll get well. The worst is past.”

 

And Maker, if this is not the worst, if there has been worse than _this_ for her — the Void has opened beneath his feet and he is falling into it forever.

 

Lady Trevelyan’s arms are gentle around him as the floor heaves beneath his feet, her voice sweet, her hand on his hair soft. The contrast with Kill's strong embrace, her even, level tone —

 

He can only endure it a moment, pulls away. “Inquisitor — can someone find me a candle?”

 

The healers cannot tell him when she will wake. Cullen hears the word _if_ that they do not let past their lips.

 

The Chant of Light is long.

 

He starts at the beginning. _Only the Word dispels the darkness upon us._

 

He will say all of them, all the words, until the Maker and Andraste hear him, and she wakes.

 

People come and go: some to try to tell him he should leave, at least for a little while; others to kneel with him. Once he thinks he hears Fel’s voice, stumbling through the Canticle of Benedictions with him. Leliana comes, ignores him, bends over the bed to tell Kill that Firefly, too badly injured to stand, is being brought by wagon back to Skyhold under Dorian’s care. She sets two candles beside the one Cullen carefully nurtures, lights them both, kneels to murmur with him, _the one who repents, who has faith, unshaken by the darkness of the world, she shall know true peace._

 

And then Dorian himself appears in the doorway of the infirmary, weaving on his feet with exhaustion, and of everyone, the Tevinter mage is the one person with more right than Cullen himself to be there: who has put all his strength and skill into saving the horse Killeen loves.

 

Somehow, Cullen finds himself trying to tell Dorian Killeen’s favourite joke. As always, he realises half-way through that he’s ruined it by starting with the end. He tries again, as Dorian winces theatrically.

 

The merest thread of a voice from the bed. “But you fuck  _one_  nug …”  

 

She has always told him he is the worst joke-teller in all Thedas, and as Killeen slips back down into a more natural sleep Cullen kneels by her bed and thanks the Maker with all his heart that he is constitutionally unable to remember a punchline.

 

The words of the chant tumble from his lips automatically, which is just as well, because all he can think over and over is _but you fuck **one** nug ... but you fuck **one** nug ..._

 

He can't imagine any words he’d be happier to hear.

 

 _Many are those who wander in sin, despairing that they are lost forever, but the one who repents, who has faith unshaken by the darkness of the world, shall know the peace of the Maker's benediction_ , he whispers, as his heart sings _but you fuck **one** nug ..._

 

The Maker, it is said, loved Andraste. 

 

Cullen suspects He'll understand.


	36. Beneath The Skin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which someone learns to walk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the game, that final party seems to happen almost immediately on the return to Skyhold. I have delayed it somewhat here.

Cullen leaves Killeen to the care of the healers, goes to his bed in the loft and sleeps for sixteen hours without dreams, without, as far as he can later tell, so much as rolling over.

 

Wakes, deals with the most urgent of the stacks of paperwork on his desk, and returns to the infirmary.

 

Now Kill has woken, he expects to find her well on the road to recovery, even on her feet — is taken aback to find her pale and still in her bed. The healers explain that even the amount of healing magic poured into her by Lady Vivienne and the Inquisitor can only do so much — Cullen remembers the scraps of crumpled, blackened metal, the shreds of crisped leather, that had been all that was left of Kill’s armour and imagines, then tries desperately not to imagine, what the body inside that armour had looked like before the mages’ intervention.

 

_Andraste have mercy on me, I **sent** her to it._

 

Kill sleeps, wakes, drinks water from the cup he holds for her, sleeps again.

 

It is days before he is able to believe, each time she closes her eyes, that she will wake again.

 

_Forgive me_ , he wants to say, except he doesn’t see how she can. She seems to have forgotten that it’s his fault she’s in that bed, seems content to have him there.

 

He can’t bear to think of her alone, in that room, in that bed.

 

He doesn’t risk reminding her.

 

It’s a milestone, when the healers permit her to sit up in bed. She lasts less than an hour, is trembling with exhaustion when Cullen slips his arm beneath her shoulders and eases her back down, but the next day she is sitting up again, and — another milestone — complaining about the cold at Skyhold.

 

When the healers say she will be up and walking soon, he asks Dorian to watch over her, asks Lady Trevelyan for permission to visit the Emerald Groves on a hunting trip. She asks if he is finally going to replace his cloak, and he shakes his head.

 

The Inquisitor comes with him, in the end, and so Cullen barely has the chance to strike a blow against the great bear before Sera’s arrows and Lady Trevelyan’s lightning bolts do their work. Still, the pelt is what matters, and they ride back to Skyhold with it rolled and bundled across a packhorse. The tanners and tailors will need time, but when they’ve finished, Kill will never need to complain about the cold again.

 

He thinks of telling her, wants to surprise her — then forgets about either at the guarded wariness in her eyes as she greets him. Her tone is acid as she tells him not to keep the Inquisitor waiting, reminding him of what he’d chosen, when there was a choice to be made – when the price of that choice was the pain Killeen has endured. Is enduring.

 

There is nothing he can say except _Forgive me._

 

There is nothing he can do but leave her in peace.

 

A backlog of reports and requisitions awaits him in his office, and he works through it, steadily, methodically. Eats when he is supposed to, lies down when it is time to sleep. Wakes from dreams he can’t remember with tears drying on his cheeks.

 

Fel comes to tell him that she and her mother are leaving Skyhold – the Hinterlands are safe, now, they’re going to join her father. She is subdued, determined not to cry, half-strangles him with her goodbye embrace – promises to write and extracts from him a promise to visit, if Inquisition business takes him near.

 

“And Kill, too,” she insists.  “When she’s better.”

 

“And Kill, too,” Cullen promises, rather than explain to the child that he and Killeen are unlikely to be travelling anywhere together, regardless of Kill’s health.

 

He becomes expert in casually intercepting Killeen’s increasingly occasional visitors as they leave the infirmary.  _How does she seem? How is she doing?_  he asks Dorian, Cassandra, even, gritting his teeth, Ser Michel de Chevin.

 

Their answers are always a variant on  _slowly improving_  and _not in the mood for company_.  

 

The arrangements for the grand celebration of the Inquisition’s success are finally made to Josephine’s satisfaction. Cullen’s presence is required, his excuses not accepted. At the appointed hour he attends the Great Hall, keeps his distance from the happy, noisy guests. The wine is better than Skyhold can usually provide, and he finishes a goblet, accepts another from a serving man. Varric insists he sits down, takes the spot beside him on the bench and shows no sign of moving, leaving Cullen unable to excuse himself from the table without physically climbing over the dwarf.

 

The noise, eventually, starts to ebb as the guests drift away in ones and twos. The fires burn low. Varric pours him more wine and Cullen drinks it, leans his head on his hand and waits for the evening to be over.

 

“It’ll be all right, Curly,” Varric says.

 

It won’t, though, and Cullen tells him so. “I  _sent_ her there. She hates me for it — and she should.”

 

Strong hand on his shoulder. “You did what you had to. If anyone in Thedas understands what that means, it’s Killer. Give her time, Curly.”

 

“She loved me.” He realises he’s weeping. “She loved me, somehow, I don’t know how, and now —”

 

Varric refills his goblet. “Curly, trust me, at a time like this, there’s only one thing to do. Get royally, rolling, stinking drunk. Bottoms up.”

 

He wakes the next morning at the foot of the ladder to his loft, head splitting, stomach threatening to rebel, with a blurred recollection of enumerating Killeen’s virtues to anyone who would listen. Of the Iron Bull telling him that wounded animals don’t always know what’s good for them and wounded people are the same, of Sera making pointed remarks about _tits who run for the hills when it isn’t about **them** any more._

 

As he washes his face and tries to make himself at least partly presentable, Cullen wonders if that’s what he’s done.  _Leave me alone_ , he’d told her, once, and Killeen had known it was the last thing he needed, had refused to go.

 

By the sun, the day is almost half gone. This afternoon, he will go back to see her, say –  _say what, exactly?_

 

Still turning the question over in his head he climbs back down the ladder — and Cole turns up on his desk.

 

“I did knock,” the boy says as Cullen starts and curses.

 

“If no-one answers, you should  _wait_ ,” Cullen snaps, and regrets it immediately.

 

“Your head aches, your heart aches, I understand,” Cole says. “I would have waited but it’s important. Snow on the headstones, lying deep and still and white, colder than ice, colder than death, colder than cold.  _Hurry_ , she needs you.”

 

Adrenaline wipes his headache clean and he  _runs_.

 

Finds Killeen, not in the infirmary, but sitting in the sun watching the soldiers spar.

 

She tells him she’s  _fine, just feeling the chill_.

 

Looking at her, Cullen feels a chill himself. The bones of her face and hands are too sharp beneath the skin, her eyes are shadowed and he deeply mislikes the slight blue undertone to her lips.

 

_She’s not getting better, however slowly,_  he thinks, utterly certain although he can’t put his finger on why.  _She’s getting worse._  

 

Kill refuses his offer of a cloak, and dismissed, he turns to go – until she says  _Cullen, I’m sorry._

 

He stumbles through his own apology, and she offers him her hand.   _Friends_.

 

He takes it, her fingers cool and clammy, her grip weak.  _Friends_.  It’s far less than he wants; he knows it’s far more than he deserves.

 

As her  _friend_ , he corners the healer, demands to know what’s wrong , is reassured that recoveries often have dips and troughs.

 

As her  _friend_ he makes sure she eats, serenely ignoring her protests of lack of appetite as she had once ignored his. As her  _friend_ he makes her sickroom his second office, sitting with her in the evenings, trying to engage her interest in the ongoing business of the Inquisition, its gradually-changing shape now Corypheus is dead.  

 

And, after the first time he dozes off in the chair by her fire and wakes, hours later, to the sound of her nightmares, as her  _friend_ he camps on her floor. He makes her tell him, all of it, every detail, but there's no healing magic in words, this time. Killeen still wakes him every few nights, animal whimpers of pain leaving him near to tears at his helplessness. At least she seems to find some comfort in his embrace, muttering that he’s _lovely and warm_ as she slips back into a doze.

 

There are days when her side still pains her fiercely, when the chill she can't seen to shake has her huddled beneath the blankets of her bed, when weakness leaves her unable to stand.

 

She doesn't complain.

 

She doesn't complain about any of it, about anything. She doesn't joke, either, or swear, or tease him.

 

It's like someone else has come to live behind her face. 

 

Or as if something essential inside her has been broken, deeper and more important than skin and bones and muscles.

 

_What is broken, can be mended_ , Cullen tells himself.  

 

The healers insist she walk, at least a little, each day, exercise to strengthen wasted muscles and mended bones. Cullen sets himself to apply the same principle: mentions, as he works through orders for troop deployments by her bedside, that the route will take some down Old King's Road and therefore past the Duke's Duck. "Was that the one you called the worst inn in Thedas? Something about the thinness of the ale?"  

 

She closes her eyes. "Don't remember."

 

He  _does_ remember, can remember every lift and fall of her voice as she'd elaborated on the ale's inadequacy in terms that made him blush, at the time, makes him blush now to repeat them. 

 

But by the time he's finished her eyes are open again, there's a slight lift to the corner of her mouth. "I really didn't like the beer, did I?"

 

He can't help smiling. "Apparently not." 

 

"It wasn't that bad, actually," she says, closes her eyes again. “But you blush so easily I couldn’t resist the temptation to make you."

 

Cullen chalks that up as his first win. 

 

A few days later, he seeks out Varric: "I need to learn a joke."

 

Varric teaches him one about a Grey Warden, the Chancellor of the Chantry and the Divine that, once he understands it, turns Cullen red to the ears. He practises it to himself for the rest of the day, and over dinner, starts: "The Divine, a Grey Warden, and the Chancellor of the Chantry, are all on a ship, and there's only room for three in the lifeboat. Oh, and there are, on board, children, too. And the Grey Warden says ... wait, first the boat starts sinking."

 

" _Stop_ ," says Killeen, letting her spoon drop back into her  stew.  "For the love of Andraste, for the Maker's dubious and occasional mercy,  _stop murdering that joke._ "

 

He gives her a hurt expression. “But I haven’t got to the best bit yet, about there not being time to – wait, that comes at the end.”

 

"You ought to be  _charged_ with something, cruelty to humour —" A fit of coughing doubles her over and Cullen takes her bowl before it spills, not sure if he ought to call the healers as she fights to catch her breath, not sure if he should have let things be. When Kill can breathe more easily he eases her back to the pillows, pours her water. 

 

She drinks, catches her breath. Closes her eyes, opens them, and says in her thready rasp of a voice: "The Divine, a Grey Warden and the Chancellor of the Chantry are on a sea voyage on a ship that is also carrying a bevy of young templars-to-be ..."

 

Varric told it better.

  
Cullen doesn't care.

 

It's his second win.

 

He drops a stack of reports on the floor, mutters _Maker’s breath_ , and then, self-consciously,  _Andraste’s toenails_.

 

“You are worse than an old lady who keeps cats,” Killeen tells him and spends fifteen minutes, until she falls suddenly asleep as she does these days, correcting his pronunciation and emphasis of  _Andraste’s tassled tits_.

 

_Three_.

 

He stacks them one upon another like a man building a wall – a wall against the grey lethargy that encroaches on her, a wall within which the flickering traces of the woman he knows and loves can be sheltered, can be fed one tiny piece of fuel at a time until they strengthen.  

 

But there is one thing he can’t mend, himself, and that’s her longing for Firefly.

 

Cullen’s seen the mare, half mad with fear and the memory of pain, and the thought of Killeen’s reaction fills him with trepidation at the prospect of all his hard-won, tiny gains being lost – but there is only so long Kill will be put off by Master Dennet’s non-committal notes, and so when she is strong enough, he helps her down the stairs and to the stable yard.

 

His heart is in his mouth as she makes her way around the mare – one well or ill-placed kick from a horse can kill or cripple even the strongest man, and Killeen is so fragile, now, and Firefly so spooked.

 

But Kill is, as always, fearless, and with voice and hands she coaxes Firefly to stand, however briefly, on her injured leg.

 

Cullen helps her up as Dennet leads the mare away.  _Very tired_ , she says, and before they have gone a dozen steps toward the stairs he feels her sag against him, knees buckling.

 

 “Are you going to faint on me?” he asks.

 

Kill lifts her head. “Soldiers don’t faint,” she says. “We pass out.”

 

And does, face as white as bone, body slack and heavy in his arms.


	37. The Falling Snow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which blood is shed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter overlaps with both Beneath the Skin and The Falling Snow

The next day Killeen can barely sit up without breaking a sweat, but is still adamant she has to return to the stables, to Firefly. 

 

It's not just against the healer's advice, it's a clear impossibility, but Cullen only persuades her to lie back and rest by promising he'll see to her horse himself. 

 

To calm the mare, he wears one of Killeen's shirts, expecting laughter at the stables but instead getting an approving nod from Dennet, a muttered  _smart lad_.

 

It's been years since Cullen was a lad, smart or otherwise, but then he supposes to Dennet, most of the residents of Skyhold seem like children. 

 

Day after day he works with the mare, until eventually she learns to trust him enough that his own scent is enough to calm her. He carves out precious hours from his work, even more precious moments from the time he spends with Kill, coaxes and cajoles until Firefly will walk, cautious and limping still, but on all four legs — until she sometimes puts that bad leg down of her own accord while standing. 

 

 _She'll mend_ , he knows when he sees that. _In time, she'll mend_. 

 

He carries Killeen down to where she can watch, troubled by how light she seems in his arms, walks Firefly around for her, manages even to coax a few steps of a canter. The mare, scarred and scared, is still beautiful. Cullen rubs her neck, feeds her a piece of apple, remembers Harding telling how the riding school mare had faced an Alpha Hurlock at her rider’s request, had refused to leave Kill’s side.

 

Without Firefly, Killeen would have died on that glassy plain, died on a darkspawn’s sword.

 

Like her rider, the mare had been unflinching, and as he turns to lead her toward the stable, Cullen knows that despite the shadow of her fear and pain, beneath it all her heart is still strong and brave.

 

_Like her rider._

 

When he returns to Killeen she’s pale and barely conscious, lips tinged with blue. He helps her, half carries her, back to the infirmary. “Look at her,” he tells the healer, and if Kill hadn’t been all but fainting in his arms Cullen would have taken the man by the throat. “This is not some _dip_ in her recovery.”

 

“Lie down,” Kill mumbles, and he helps her to her bed, returns to have a few choice words with the healer, words which include _boot_ and _arse_. Kill is asleep when he comes back to her bedside, and he stokes the fire in deference to her constant chill, despite the lingering warmth of the day.

 

She wakes thirsty, drinks cup after cup of water, tells him the healer’s suggested she’s _malingering_ and pulls up her shirt to show the healed scars on her side. Shows, too, a plum-coloured bruise that extends from her ribs to her hip-bone — asks him to stoke the fire as if it isn’t already crackling briskly enough to heat even his loft in the depth of winter and falls suddenly asleep again.

 

Cullen fetches salve, fetches wood, builds the fire until it threatens to crack the flue with its ferocity, applies the lineament to her cold, clammy skin as gently as he can.

  
He dozes uneasily in the heat, sweat trickling down his sides, is instantly alert when she gives a desperate cry.

 

“Cullen — _Cullen_!”

 

“I’m here,” he says quickly, kneeling by her bed. “What is it?”

 

Kill’s eyes are open but unseeing, her whole body trembling convulsively. “Cullen, please, Cullen!”

 

Her shoulders are cold beneath his hands despite the heat that has his shirt sticking to his back with sweat. “Kill, I’ m here, I’m here.”

 

“Cullen,” she sobs, teeth chattering so badly the words are barely intelligible. “Please, please, no, Cullen —”

 

“I’m here, Kill, please, I’m here. Please, wake  _up_!”

 

With a final gasp she does, reaching for him with hands that tremble as if with ague. Her hands and face are cold and clammy to his touch, but it is her heaving, gasping breaths that alarm him most, the violent shivers racking her. 

 

He's seen it before, on battlefields, the last agonising breaths of the dying as life's blood pours out through the fingers clamped across a wound, the uncontrollable shaking, the living flesh already cooling toward death, and when the healer comes in answer to his shouts for help and diagnoses a _chill_ Cullen knows there’s no help for her there.

 

 _Fetch Lady Trevelyan_ , he thinks, and then hears Killeen’s breath rattle in her throat.

 

There is no time to _fetch_ anyone. Cullen scoops her from the bed and carries her, blankets trailing, across the courtyard and through the Great Hall, feeling the tremors that shake her becoming more violent, less regular, hearing her breath rattle and rasp. Begs her to hold on, kicks open the door to the Inquisitor’s quarters and hurries up the last flight of stairs.

 

He has just enough breath left to gasp: “Help her.”

 

Lady Trevelyan, even woken from a sound sleep, is quick-witted. She slings a robe around her shoulders and orders him to lay Kill on her bed. 

Touches Kill with glowing hands and the dreadful gasping and trembling stops.

 

His knees weaken with relief. _She will be all right. She will be all right._

 

Lady Trevelyan asks Kill about pain, and Cullen draws up her shirt to show the Inquisitor the bruise on her side, is shocked to see it doubled in size in a few short hours, joined by another around her navel, her belly swollen and tight.

 

And then Lady Trevelyan explains that Killeen will _not_ be all right — that she is bleeding, not from a wound but from somewhere inside, bleeding beyond the Inquisitor’s abilities to mend. _If it was a wound I could see, then I could …_

 

For one wild moment he considers cutting into Kill’s flesh with his belt-knife, exposing whatever internal wound she’s suffered for Lady Trevelyan’s care, but he has only a soldier’s knowledge of anatomy, knows how to kill but not how to avoid a lethal wound. He is no surgeon —

 

“I’ll be right back,” he tells her, and _runs_.

 

The Charger’s surgeon, Stitches, wakes immediately and completely, grabs his satchel and makes ready to follow Cullen. Remembering the Inquisitor’s words, _I’ve used almost everything I have already_ , Cullen turns to Dalish, demands her lyrium.

 

The elf hesitates. “I’m an archer …”

 

Cullen’s fists clench. Krem speaks before he can: “No-one gives a shit if you use lyrium to fletch your arrows, Dalish,” he says, and empties the elf’s waist-pack onto the floor of the tent, grabbing a double handful of blue bottles and putting them into Cullen’s grasp.

 

They are in time, although only barely. Cullen does not allow himself to consider the possibility Stitches will fail, follows the man’s directions calmly and unhesitatingly, although it gives him pause when the surgeon cuts into Kill’s side and the bed is suddenly, shockingly, flooded with blood. _Hold her still_ , the surgeon reminds him, and Cullen does, as Kill lies rigid and sweating with pain, breath whining in her throat.

 

“Look at me,” he tells her, and her grey eyes open, cloudy with pain. He holds her gaze, lies to her, all he can do for her. “Nearly done, now. Kill, it’s nearly done.”

 

And then it is not a lie, and it _is_ done, and the Inquisitor closes the incision made by the surgeon and Cullen feels Kill’s pulse slow and become steady.

 

There are details, which he knows he will care a great deal about later, especially the detail that the healers had completely missed that small and lethal fragment of dragon scale that has been slowly draining Killeen’s life all spring and summer. At the moment, though, all he cares about is the slow and easy murmur of Kill’s breath, the steady beat of her heart, the returning pinkness of her lips. _She’ll be all right, with rest._

 

He embraces Lady Trevelyan in profound gratitude, forgets that she is slight and delicate and holds her as fiercely as he would hold Killeen until she squeaks a breathless protest.

 

Servants come, to strip the bloodied sheets, to help him wash the blood from Killeen’s skin and dress her in a clean shirt. Lady Trevelyan tells him she will find another bed for the night — Josephine Montilyet’s, he assumes and is glad of it, wishes this woman who has given him back everything precious in the world all and every happiness.

 

Then they are all gone and the room is quiet and still, so quiet that even as Cullen brews tea he can hear Killeen breathing. He could sit by her bed and listen to that even, easy rhythm for the rest of the night, but _warmth and fluids_ , Stitches had said, and so he wakes her.

 

Leaning against him, sipping the tea, her skin is still too cool, but it’s no longer the terrifyingly clammy chill of the dying and her weight against him has the normal living tension of a body relaxing into sleep.

 

But still, it’s not until she teases him about the few months difference in their ages that Cullen allows himself to finally believe that it is over, these long months of watching her fade slowly before his eyes, that she will be well and whole and _herself_ again. As she falls asleep with her head on his shoulder, he bows his head over hers and offers heartfelt thanks that she has weathered the storm. 


	38. Face to Face

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which things are, finally, said out loud.

Cullen is unutterably confused.

 

He doesn't think anyone could blame him. He’d fallen asleep with Killeen cradled against his chest, listening to her breathing, feeling her steady pulse beneath the fingers that brushed her neck —

 

And woken to see her tacking the Inquisitor to the ground.

 

Not, it seems, as his first and chilling thought had been at Killeen’s gasped _she’s not what you think!_ because Lady Trevelyan had succumbed to possession —

 

But because she’d kissed Josephine?

 

And then light begins to dawn, and it’s the glorious glow of the sunrise of a perfect day after a long night of storms. Somehow, for some reason, Cole has told Kill that Cullen’s heart is given to Lady Trevelyan.

 

_She thinks I’ve been in love with the Inquisitor all this time._

 

Everything he thinks he knows shifts slightly, turns ninety degrees and settles into a new and beautiful pattern as Kill buries her face in his shirt and bawls like a heartsick child.

 

_She loves me._

 

_She has always loved me._

 

It’s delightful and wonderful and dizzying to hear her saying _I love you, I love you, I always have, I love you, I do, I do_ , but he wants to tell her how wrong she’s been, how right she’s been, and it doesn’t feel exactly right to do so over the top of her loud sobs.

 

He waits for her to stop crying, using the time to work out exactly, precisely, the perfect words to say to her — then starts to wonder _if_ she'll stop crying, at least any time this morning. 

 

Coaxes her to calm, persuades her to look at him. “All those times you talked about … did you really never know I was looking at  _you_?”

 

And she is, for once in her life, without a wise-crack, expression utterly astonished. He can’t help laughing as he tries to explain the depth of their misunderstanding, laughing at her, at himself, but most of all because the happiness that fills him like a pure golden light insists on overflowing. _She loves me, she loves me, Andraste be praised, she loves me …_

 

Finds the words to convince her it's the truth: _Andraste's tits, how much time we've wasted_. He knows she finally believes him when she makes a joke, and then, since she believes him, he can kiss her, finally, and it is not the tender, passionate kiss he had been about to give her on the walls that night they’d been interrupted, because she is laughing and so is he — it is not at all what he imagined, it is better than he could have imagined, it is perfection, and then her lips part against his and her arms tighten around him and as she leans into him Cullen feels desire course through him like fire through oil.

 

Pulling her down onto the bed, he slips his hand beneath her shirt, feeling the thin lines of scar tissue against the smooth warmth of her skin — stops as Kill gasps. Not in pain, she assures him, but she shivers a little, drawing back from him, folding her arms protectively across her chest.

 

At her fear, his erection subsides. “Nothing you don’t want,” he promises her. _Not ever, I swear to you, not ever anything you don’t want._

 

She jokes, shakily, about preferring the dark.

 

Cullen closes his eyes.

 

After a moment he feels her take his hand, draw it gently to rest on her hip. He waits, patiently, until he feels the muscles beneath his fingers relax, then ventures to trace the line of her thigh, slowly, carefully, then moves his hand up to her waist, to the small of her back, only going further when he hears her sigh, feels her arch into his touch. When he gathers her to him she comes eagerly, helps him with her shirt, draws his head to her breast. Her nipple hardens beneath his mouth and her hands tighten in his hair. 

 

"Tell me if you want me to stop," he whispers, and smiles against the curve of her breast when she answers  _don't you dare._

 

He learns her body with hands and lips and tongue, mapping the scars he has only seen and never touched, navigating by her murmurs of pleasure and soft moans. She tastes of soap and salt and sleep, is ripe and open beneath his fingers. When she catches her breath in a sob he stops instantly, only to hear her beg _please, there, please, Cullen, please_ … his own need mounts as her voice rises in a crescendo, fingers digging in to his shoulders, and by the time she shudders in release he is achingly hard.

 

“Are you all right?” he asks as he feels her trembling ease and stop.

 

“Oh, yes,” she says, and he feels her fingers trace the length of his rigid cock. It’s all he can do to hold still as her touch sends bolts of heat to the base of his spine. “Cullen, please, I want …”

 

He gasps as she frees him from his breeches. “Sure?”

 

Kill’s tone is exactly the one she’d use with a recalcitrant merchant. “Maker, _yes_ , I’m _sure_!” They’re both laughing again as she guides him to her, lifts her hips as he slides into her, welcoming him home.

 

And it’s beyond imagination, feeling her around him, the flutter of her muscles, the slick warmth. He holds still, sure that if he moves even a little the sensation will overwhelm him and his climax will come all too soon, and  _Maker_ , he wants this moment to last forever. 

 

“Cullen,” Killeen whispers, and he feels her fingers on his cheek. “Look at me, Cullen.”

 

She is more beautiful than seems possible, flushed and breathless, wanting him, wanting him because she loves him, and he opens his mouth to tell her so but the words on his lips are a prayer of thanks instead — and then she arches beneath him and he can’t hold still any longer, feeling her move with him, feeling the same urgency building within him mounting in her, hearing her voice mingling with his own _oh, yes, please, now_ —

 

A moment of stillness at the edge of the cliff, her grey gaze steady on his.

 

He says her name and she cries out wordlessly, the waves of her climax pulsing around him, and then they are falling, falling together, over the edge, falling into light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's all, folks ... until the sequel. Still looking for suggestions for a title for that! And remember, author subsists on coffee and feedback!


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